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Chapter Text

The flickering lights pick out highlights in brilliant white and electric shades of blue, poking into the shadowy recesses, catching against the dull metallic walls and bouncing off the two-way mirror behind them. Glinting off the wires connecting the electrode pads to whatever monitors whirr quietly at the far side of the room.

It was the electrodes out of the whole set up that had, understandably, made Bucky go tense and quiet, etching lines deeper around his eyes and the set of his mouth was hard and flat. He had submitted to them being placed on his temples, watched as the wires had been strung across to the bank of switches and blinking lights, a high tight unhappiness inscribing itself across the lines of his shoulders.

‘You’re supposed to be watching the screen,’ Bucky says, low and gruff, somehow knowing without looking that Sam is, again, glancing across at him.

Sam huffs out a half-breath, settles back into his chair which, damn, is pretty comfortable. Not quite La-Z-boy comfortable, but getting there. He switches his attention back to the screen set up in front of him and the avatar figure making its way through a series of challenges and scenarios, running, fighting, strategising - just like being on a mission only without the side-effects of being punched, stabbed, shot, thrown out of something or off something-

Sam throws a grin at Bucky this time. ‘See? This isn’t so bad. Just like playing a video game. Hell, get a few beers and some pizza and this is a pretty decent way to spend an evening.’

Bucky breathes, even, like he has been all along but it’s a little too even, too regular, like this is something he is actively working on. ‘I don’t play video games, Sam.’

Sam’s avatar makes a calculated and wholly successful leap across a vertiginous drop between two buildings and Sam feels a stab of triumph, like he had actually completed the manoeuvre himself. He can absolutely complete that manoeuvre himself, in real life, with or without his wings. ‘You play,’ he tells Bucky. ‘I have seen you play, so many times, with Cass and AJ.’

It’s fleeting, the momentary softness that ticks at the corners of Bucky’s stern mouth. ‘Mario Kart doesn’t count.’ Another breath in and out. ‘And you might want to watch out for the guy with the RPG pointed at you.’

‘Watch your own damn screen,’ Sam mutters. And of course Bucky is keeping up with what’s happening on Sam’s screen at the same time as his own avatar is moving through the various scenarios on Bucky’s screen with the exact mix of almost brutal grace and effortless efficiency as the man himself. Just like, of course, Bucky has been preternaturally good with this whole virtual exercise, barely glancing at the controller before his fingers had started manipulating it with elegant precision.

‘I dunno, man, reckon you should put those skills to good use. Enter into some of those gaming contests in, like, a side-hustle? Some of those guys make a ton of money that way.’

‘I don’t like video games,’ Bucky says, bright light flickering against his face, deepening the hollows around his eyes.

‘Still pretty good at them, though.’ Annoyingly so. Okay, so this is a favour for Rhodey and it isn’t actually a video game and it’s not like they’re getting points or anything, but in Sam’s mental tally and wholly fictitious scoring system, Bucky is ahead by some considerable margin. Which is just wrong on so very many levels.

‘Not my first time running simulations.’ Voice deceptively light but with steel running around the edges.

Fuck.

Sam sits back again, his not-quite recliner seat suddenly not so comfortable anymore and a hot burn across the back of his neck. Data collection for training simulations, Rhodey had said, just a few hours. Having both of them would optimise the results, having clear differentials between the timings and reflexes of a super-soldier and an unenhanced fighter. Rhodey had asked Sam and Sam had asked Bucky and Bucky had said yes because-

Something even then a little shuttered and closed off, his clear blue eyes clouding towards grey. But he had said yes because Sam had asked him and Rhodes had asked Sam.

And Sam really doesn’t want to think about what a simulation would look like under HYDRA.

Hands tight on the controller, Sam feels the vestiges of enjoyment slinking away and he really thinks about their situation: in chairs with wires attached to their heads, being monitored by machinery in a darkened metal-lined room and probably observed by unknown, unseen personnel from behind that two-way mirror. He feels an uptick in his heartbeat, the burn across his neck turn into an uncomfortable prickle. He’s lost all sense of how long they’ve been here, the flickering lights soporific and too damn distracted by his own dumb desire to win at this stupid non-game. And now when he really thinks about it, how Bucky hadn’t stalked out of there at the start, ripping the wires and switches and winking lights out of the wall on the way just for good measure is not just incredible but borderline miraculous. 

But Sam had asked him.

Fuck. So very much. Fuck.

‘Shit. Buck, man, I should never have asked you to do this.’

The even breath is broken by a long and long-suffering sigh. How the man can put so much sass into an exhale is beyond Sam. ‘No-one forced me to be here.  Like you, I agreed to a favour for Rhodes - although, the man coulda just asked me himself instead of using you as a proxy. And like you, I wanted to help. Gotta get over yourself, Wilson, not everything I do is about you.’ No real heat in it, just the regular amount of grumbly Bucky grousing, the same way he complains about the price of coffee and how Coca-Cola doesn’t taste the same and being made to wake up too early which he always seems to take as a personal affront until after at least two cups of coffee, which have absolutely no real effect anyway. After a moment’s silence he adds: ‘Also, tripwire.’

‘Huh?’ Sam glances at the screen. ‘Oh, shit!’ The tripwire sets off a grenade and Sam stares sadly as his avatar is obliterated. 

And it’s either a trick of the light or there’s a definite smirk now pulling at Bucky’s mouth. The asshole.

Bucky’s own avatar floats serenely in the grid they had both started out in, fine blue lines seemingly vanishing into an inky infinity on the screen.

‘Damn thing was rigged,’ Sam grumbles.

‘This wasn’t a contest,’ Bucky says. And yeah, it’s absolutely a smirk. But his eyes still glitter hard and grey and the lines in his face are too deep, shoulders  still high and tight.

The overhead lights flicker on, one of them brighter than the other and emitting an angry persistent buzz. They both blink against the sudden brightness and Bucky winces against the noise. A grey metal door opens in the grey metal room and two people step in. Clipboards, white lab coats, one man, one woman, one tall, one short, like a pair of scientists right out of central casting and Sam feels slightly hysterical at the thought. They had seemed nice enough, all eager smiles and shaking of hands and we’re so thrilled you agreed to take part! and they both smile benevolently.

Bucky places his controller carefully in the little dock at the side of his chair, sits with his hands carefully curled in his lap. Sam pastes on a grin that he hopes looks a little easier than it feels.

‘Got everything you need?’

Dr Gupta, creamy olive skin and shining black hair nods happily. ‘Oh, wow, yes. That was the best sim run we’ve seen! You guys were great.’

‘Better than a movie,’ her colleague puts in. Petersen, Sam recalls. Gangly and carrying with him the faint whiff of iodine that reminds Sam of Bruce. A head of white-blond curls and eyes of a blue too watery to be called pretty or arresting. ‘I’ve seen you both on the news but, I mean y’know, you don’t really get to see anything. Yeah, you two are really something.’

‘Can we get out of this rig?’ Bucky, hands bunching tighter and he’s still doing his regular breathing and the careful control of it is really starting to stress Sam the hell out.

‘Oh gosh, of course!’ Dr Gupta places her clipboard on top of the bank of machines and flutters a fraction. ‘Let me just…’ Switches get flicked and the humming powers down, lights blinking off. The noise from the overhead light fills the space instead and she glances up at it, lips pressing together. ‘I’m sorry about that. This- this was the best suite they’d loan us. We were pretty lucky to get it, really.’

Petersen fusses around Sam, carefully peeling away the electrodes and the relief is, unexpectedly, immense. Bucky yanks his own off gracelessly just as Gupta reaches him and she squeaks faintly and then smiles, embarrassed, holds out her hand for the tangle of wires and pads. ‘I’ll, uh, I’ll take those for you.’ He gives her a jerky nod, starts prowling about the room in the way that always makes Sam think that the Wakandans call him White Wolf with good reason.

‘You aren’t based here full time?’ It seems only polite to make some sort of conversation now that Sam has restored himself to something approaching a base-line normality and the pair of researchers show no signs of imminent world-threatening evil. They both just look eager and kind of tired behind all of that. Their lab coats are creased and there’s a greasy mark on the front of Petersen’s shirt like he’s eaten lunch hunched over a bunsen burner in his lab. Dark circles under Gupta’s eyes and her glossy ponytail looks more fingers-dragged-through-it than actually combed.

And yeah, okay, not every scientist is the total dorky cliché that is Bruce Banner - but Sam recognises underpaid, overstretched worker-drones when he sees them.

‘Nah,’ Petersen says cheerfully, carefully checking over Sam’s controller before returning it to its dock. ‘The military contracted the research out and then we got sub-contracted in, so…’

Sam nods. ‘The usual.’

The watery-blue eyes crinkle, a fine network of lines radiating outwards from the corners. ‘Yeah, I guess. Still, at least we’re getting to do something worthwhile.’

‘We do plenty worthwhile!’ Gupta shoots him an indignant look, retrieves a series of USB sticks from the machinery and clips plastic caps over the metal interfaces. She ushers them towards the door and Sam steps out into the corridor with a heavy exhale, glad to be out of their airless metal box. He scratches at the residual stickiness on his left temple. ‘Robotics and AI,’ she continues, leading them through a series of winding corridors all painted in the usual shades of institutional greige but there’s a rush of life, voices and footsteps and the occasional other human being squeezing past them in the cramped passages. ‘We do a lot of work with veterans, actually. Cal’s the robotics, I’m AI. We’ve been working on developing new prosthetics and therapeutic immersive realities for trauma survivors-’

‘Kate…’ Quiet, long-suffering and a hint of warning. Petersen has his hands balled deep in the pockets of his lab coat. Kate Gupta squints over her shoulder at him, a sort of exasperated fondness creasing her face. ‘What? It’s not secret, that’s not the confidential stuff and besides-’ she waves a hand in their direction ‘-they’ll have way higher security clearance than we do.’ 

They stop at a door, Gupta fishing a set of keys out of her pocket, jangling them awkwardly with her left hand, her right still tight around the USB sticks. Bucky gently takes the keys from her and she flashes him a delighted, appreciative grin. Bucky pushes the door open, offering her a bland approximation of one of his charming I’m just being helpful smiles and her grin widens.

Sam can’t help but roll his eyes. He’s saved people from having literal buildings fall on them and received less gratitude. But he has noticed that Bucky’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes, even if Kate Gupta hasn’t.

The door lets on to a cramped office, desks piled with papers and files, the overflow in boxes on the floor. An air-conditioning unit wheezes, providing a seam of cool in the air that holds the musty smell of old dirt and stale coffee. Gupta places her precious USBs into a desk-top safe and Sam can almost feel Bucky’s full-body wince, almost hear him thinking that anyone could just take the whole damn safe and bust it open later if they wanted. Sam thinks it too but it’s mitigated by the knowledge that no-one would be bothered to steal information that only matters to the two scientists whose office this is.

Schematics are pinned up along one wall and Bucky eases over, rapt attention held first by those and then by the display on the shelving beneath. Sam takes a few steps closer, looks over his shoulder. A row of horribly life-like eyeballs look back at him, wires sticking out where the optic nerve should be. They glisten, pupils blown wide and Sam feels his stomach roil. Bucky hinges lower, gaze intent, like he’s having a staring contest with them.

On the sliding scale of horrors to which Bucky has borne witness over his many decades, this probably doesn’t register on the lowest of the low end. Still, every now and then it would be nice to see Bucky freak out over something.  Sam keeps staring at the eyeballs with a weird fascination: they shade from  chocolate brown to a not-unfamiliar bright grey-blue. Although, he would have to admit, it would probably take something fairly monumental to make Bucky freak out and perhaps it would be a fairly monumental too far for Sam’s own sanity.

Careful what you wish for, he reminds himself. He looks instead at the series of bright sticky notes pinned to the schematics. 

What are we going to do tonight, Kate?

Same thing we do EVERY night, Cal!

MWHAHAHA!!!

It’s so on-the-nose dorky that Sam finds it sweet. Quiet breathing behind him. Sam half-turns and finds Cal Petersen with an expression of muted pleasure. ‘They look good, don’t they?’

Sam twitches a smile onto his face. ‘Yeah… Uh, yeah, they look very … realistic.’

Petersen’s eyes crease again. ‘A lot of our work is with veterans. So many have been blinded by IEDs and landmines. These prosthetics have been developed to work with a new interface that interacts directly with re-routed neural pathways.’

‘That’s where the AI comes in,’ Gupta adds. Under the fluorescent strip-lighting her skin looks sallow, the shadows dark around her eyes. ‘Immersive realities help with the mental and emotional trauma as well as the physical recovery.’ She sucks in a breath, nods as though to herself once, twice, and her tongue darts out to moisten her lips at the same time her eyes turn to Bucky, a glancing, twitchy look that doesn’t quite settle on his face until he straightens again and she catches the full force of his studiedly neutral stare. ‘I, uh… I know it’s a lot to ask.’

She’s all of five foot and change and her head tilts back to meet his eyes. Bucky has gone into a quiet, careful stillness, lips flattening and something tightening across the line of his shoulders.

‘I know you’re not-’ She stops herself, starts again. ‘Working with an enhanced person would accelerate the AI’s evolution. If you’d be willing… It wouldn’t be anything intrusive, just something like today: a series of tests and programmes while we monitor your reactions.’

Bucky’s chest rises and falls. ‘Sure.’ Fingers flex fractionally at his sides. ‘Glad to help.’

‘Oh my- Thank you! If I can just get-’

‘Colonel Rhodes will have my contact details.’

She blinks. ‘Yes. Yes! Of course…’

The air-conditioning rattles, a funereal gasp. Bucky’s hands plunge deep into the pockets of his leather jacket, a scooped-out hollowness around his eyes and the forced smile is starting to resemble a rictus grin. Bucky, Sam has already realised, may not have reached his limit for smalltalk in and of itself but he has certainly reached his limit for smalltalk with scientists after a morning of experiments and observation and being holed up in almost-but-not-quite lab-like conditions. So Sam pastes on a smile and inserts himself into the conversation. 

‘Probably well past the time we got out of your hair. Doctor Gupta-’

‘Oh, please, it’s Kate.’ Luminous behind the tiredness etched into her face. Sam feels his smile turn a little easier at the edges. She touches him lightly on the arm and her cheeks round.

‘Kate.’ An easy warmth to it. He turns to Petersen and Sam automatically catches hold of the hand that’s being extended: an unexpectedly hard grasp, the skin dry and chalky. ‘Cal?’

Cal Petersen nods, humming in the back of his throat and the sound catches on a reedy, nasal note. ‘Let me walk you back up to Colonel Rhodes - too easy to get lost in these corridors, they all look the same, y’know?’

Barely through the door and they spot Rhodes further along the corridor in conversation with another man in uniform. Petersen stops abruptly, shoes squeaking against the floor. ‘Ah, okay. Uh-’ He smiles, a little awkward. ‘It’s been a pleasure, Captain Wilson. Sergeant Barnes. ’

Bucky nods, terse, and Petersen melts back into his shared office, the door closing with a soft snick. Rhodes, as rigidly upright as ever, turns as they approach. Lines around of fatigue around his eyes and tension around his mouth, something that isn’t to do with the bone-weariness, Sam thinks.

‘Sam. Barnes.’ He nods. ‘This is Major Evans, he’s part of the team working on the project you volunteered for.’

Sandy hair that’s turning to silver cropped close against his skull, complexion dried out by innumerable desert tours and hard, light eyes. His gaze lands on Sam and-

Oh. Right. That’s why Rhodey looks like he’s got a mouthful of needles. Sam’s seen that look a thousand times before and he’ll see it a thousand times yet, he knows. He feels it crawl across his skin: it’s the look that’s all disdain, the one that says you don’t belong here and feels, again, the dizzying sweep of anger that he clamps down behind his teeth. There’s never anything overt, is the thing, but it’s always there behind every hard-edged word.

‘You’re Walker’s replacement.’ The voice is surprisingly quiet, almost pleasant in its mellow tone.

Sam feels Bucky tense behind him and wills him, for once in his life, to keep his mouth shut. He lifts his chin and curls up the corners of his mouth. ‘Yeah. They tried the rest now they’ve got the best.’

‘Gonna have that put on your posters, Cap,’ Rhodes says and they exchange a glance.

Evans sucks on a tooth, a feral anger tightening around his eyes before his face smooths back into blandness. His gaze flickers to Bucky and lingers for a moment, a nod of his head. ‘Sergeant Barnes.’

Sam can imagine the expression on Bucky’s face, closed-off and eyes glittering like steel. 

‘I’ll have the report on today’s sessions ready for you by tomorrow, Colonel.’ A world of scorn poured into that last world. ‘Captain,’ he adds, with a mean little smile. He moves past them, his shoulders rolling with the ease of assumed superiority.

Sam lets a long breath out down his nose. ‘We’re gonna head out, grab some lunch. You wanna join us, Colonel?’

It’s a momentary hesitation, a blink of surprise across the older man’s face and maybe Sam wouldn’t have made a point of asking him if the asshole swaggering his way down the corridor hadn’t been such an asshole and that thought alone brings its own burn of shame. Rhodes is a good guy and no matter the difference of opinion on some things and the very obvious lines that have been drawn between them over the years, Rhodes has had his and Bucky’s backs these past months, more so than the people who are actively supposed to sometimes.

The colonel’s face resolves itself into something that resembles pleasure. ‘Sure. Why not?’

The Morningstar Diner is not on any tourist map, it isn’t a glamorous spot or a low-key cult must-see of DC. Worn-looking formica, scuffed linoleum flooring and a flickering red neon sign in the window. It’s just an honest-to-goodness diner practically around the corner from his office but before today Colonel James Rhodes has never set foot in it and now that he has he is regretting so many of his lunch-based decisions to date. There are some places that are so unassuming that you just know instinctively that the food, however basic, will be outstanding and he knows within seconds that the Morningstar is one of them.

That Sam apparently knows this, when Rhodes doesn’t, when Sam doesn’t even live in Washington full time anymore, is just unacceptable.

They slide into a booth only after Barnes has made a covert but thorough scope of the place within about the first fifteen seconds of them having walked in and only visibly relaxes when they are ensconced at a table where he has clear sightlines of each and every entrance and exit and has already made himself familiar with all of them.

It must be exhausting, Rhodes thinks, but Barnes seems to relax incrementally once he has satisfied his own security protocols and Rhodes isn’t about to argue with him on that score. The guy could probably earn a fortune as a security consultant to a series of shady regimes, oligarchs and billionaires and the fact that he doesn’t is admirable, at the very least. All of that aside. It’s been a while since Rhodes has had a lunch that wasn’t taken at his desk reading over reports; even longer - probably - since he had lunch with someone else outside of the Goddamn office building even if that someone else is a pair of idiots. Okay, so Wilson and Barnes are almost freakishly effective  in the field and God do they get shit done, but they are still, unquestionably, a pair of monumental idiots, both of them.

Sam worries at a paper napkin, tearing it into shreds. ‘So, how did that Evans asshole end up on this project? Didn’t exactly strike me as the greatest team player.’

‘That guy was strictly from Dixie,’ Bucky adds, body angled so he’s looking across Sam’s shoulders and catching the eye of the waitress.

Sam’s fingers stop, his face scrunching. ‘Strictly- Is this more of your weird old man slang?’ He glances across the table at Rhodes. ‘You heard that right? You get what I have to put up with?’

‘I heard,’ Rhodes says, calm. He slides his phone out of his pocket discreetly.

‘It’s no weirder than half the shit you come out with, Sam.’

‘Oh-ho! That a fact, huh?’ Sam turns fully, strips of shredded napkin falling on the tabletop. ‘I distinctly heard you say ducky shincracker just last week.’

Bucky waggles the fingers of his right hand in the air and a waitress starts to amble over with glasses and a pitcher of ice water. ‘It just means good dancer, I told you that.’

‘You mean what you claim to be?’

‘Think my dancing days are probably behind me,’ Bucky says, so lightly that it feels heartbreaking. ‘And I was a pretty good dancer.’

‘Deeds, not words, old man,’ Sam tells him; and then his arms get folded across his chest. ‘Okay, so what does mainly from-’

‘Strictly from Dixie,’ Bucky repeats with weighted patience.

Sam rolls his eyes. ‘Whatever. What does that even mean?’

‘An uncool person,’ Rhodes supplies smoothly and it’s worth it for the comical rounding of Sam’s eyes and mouth.

‘What-’

Three glasses and the pitcher land on the table. ‘You boys want coffee?’ A slightly puffy face with a faded prettiness. She stands over them, leaning into one hip and she looks bored rigid. 

All three nod, murmuring assent and she ambles away again, her movements the easy roll of someone who spends all day on her feet.

And Sam aims accusing eyes across the table at Rhodes. The colonel meets the gaze, unflinching. ‘How the hell did you know that?’

‘I thought everyone knew that.’ He sees Bucky’s eyes land on his phone and the faint crease of amusement at the corners of his eyes and the way his lips press together.

‘See, Sam, all of the best people know this stuff,’ Bucky says.

Rhodes feels his lips twitch, an involuntary response.

‘You’re both assholes,’ Sam tells them.

‘What would you have rather I’d said - haters gonna hate?’

‘I don’t-’ Sam shunts forward in his seat. ‘Are you quoting Taylor Swift?’

Bucky’s eyebrows climb. ‘You got something against Tay-Tay?’

It is objectively hilarious watching Sam Wilson attempting to recapture the stream of his own thoughts. ‘That- I’m not- Taylor Swift is cool-’ Sam sucks in a breath. ‘Who the hell are you?’

Their waitress saves Bucky from any immediate smart-aleck reply. Still tired and bored, her dyed red hair showing a half-inch of silvery regrowth at the roots. She sets three cups down, holds a stained glass coffeepot in the other. Bucky Barnes tilts his head back and aims a smile at her that is wide and almost glowing. ‘Miranda,’ he says, reading her name tag. She lifts her eyes from the coffeepot, mulishness around lips painted a frosted pink but all of her hardness stutters slightly when she meets Bucky’s wide blue eyes. ‘That's a real pretty name - if you don’t mind my saying so, ma’am.’

What the actual hell bullshit is this? Rhodes wonders and watches with a mild kind of hysteria. Barnes is the quiet guy, the shut-down (with damn good reason) brooding presence who just glowers darkly unless he’s in the field. Where he also glowers darkly. He glances at Sam for confirmation that this is a strange, Bizarro universe that they have slipped into somehow on the short walk from his office to the diner but the other man is studying the ceiling tiles with a long-suffering air that seems like more of a performance than an actual objection.

‘Don’t mind that,’ Miranda says, her fingers tapping against the pot’s plastic handle, her eyes lowered under a fringing of thickly mascaraed lashes. ‘Most people call me Randi.’

Bucky frowns, a divot deepening between his brows. ‘Now, that doesn’t seem right. Y’know, I saw a movie called Miranda? Old movie, British. She’s a mermaid, drives all the guys wild.’ His head tilts and a small, sweet smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. ‘You kinda look like her a little.’

She huffs out a slight laugh, her face flushing and she really is pretty then. ‘I know that’s just a line but I’m gonna get you boys some fresh coffee anyhow, just for the effort.’

Bucky’s smile widens. ‘It’s no effort.’

‘Oh, you…’

And she honest to God blushes, eyes crinkling through the upward sweep of black liner and the shimmering blue eyeshadow.

‘We’re probably ready to order now, if that’s okay?’

Miranda sets down the coffeepot, pulls a notepad and pen out of her apron and tilts her head, waiting. Rhodes decides on a turkey club; Bucky orders a full Yankee with just about extra everything and Rhodes is willing to bet that by this point he’ll be getting extra extra without even asking. Before Sam can open his  mouth, Bucky says, ‘He’ll have a salt beef Reuben with mustard and chilli fries.’

There’s more of a sway in her hips when Miranda walks away from the table. Sam turns outraged eyes to his partner.

‘Seriously?’

Bucky’s hands spread, palms upwards. ‘What?’

‘I got a mouth, man, I can order my own damn food!’

‘It’s Wednesday,’ Bucky states, calm and reasonable. ‘You always order a salt beef Reuben on a Wednesday.’

‘I do not!’

Bucky puts his eyebrows up. ‘Do you not want a salt beef Reuben?’

It’s ridiculous, he knows, because this whole thing is ridiculous, but Rhodes feels weirdly invested in Sam’s lunch order. Sam’s lips push out and in and then his shoulders sink.

‘Okay, yes, that is what I want-’

‘Ha!’

‘But not just because it’s a Wednesday!’

‘But this is, in fact, a Wednesday,’ Bucky drawls.

Tony used to do the same thing to him, Rhodes remembers. He’d barely get the menu in his hands sometimes before Tony would snatch it back out and order for the both of them. And then sit there smugly because whatever he had ordered would always turn out to be just the thing that Rhodes had wanted. Tony and his enormous ego that had been dwarfed only by the size of his carefully hidden heart. The pain of missing him feels impossible sometimes. Across the table, Sam has thrown a balled-up napkin at Bucky’s head. Judging by the scuffling going on they’re kicking at each other’s ankles under the table.

Idiots.

He’s always Colonel Rhodes these days. No-one is an idiot with him anymore and the loss of it, the aching void of grief, hits him in the centre of his chest all over again.

‘He’s with the hundred-and-forth, oversees some of the training programmes at Fort Lewis. Evans,’ Rhodes states and the smiling faces opposite him sober again. He holds his spine very straight. ‘He’s actually pretty good at it. Apparently.’

‘Still an asshole,’ Sam mutters.

Rhodes rolls out his shoulders. ‘I hear that.’

Bucky clears his throat, not embarrassed exactly but more self-conscious, as though aware that this is not a conversation he automatically has a part in. ‘Guess I’m still catching up on a lot of stuff,’ he says, voice soft. ‘I thought-’ His eyes float to Sam, to Rhodes and a flicker of some complex emotion flickers across his face. ‘I guess I thought things had changed more by now.’

Bucky at least has the excuse of having been in and out of a HYDRA deep freeze for the best part of a century and quite literally not in his right mind for all of it plus change. 

‘Units were still segregated when you served, huh?’ Rhodes watches him, speculative.

He nods. ‘Yeah. The Howlies weren’t, but then we weren’t a regular unit. Plenty of folk who took against that but it was Gabe who got the worst of it, him and Jim.’ A flicker around his expressive mouth. ‘I remember this one time, there was-’ Lips clamp together. Metal fingers tap against the side of his glass.

‘What?’ Sam leans back against the faded cherry leather banquette. Bucky glances at him and Sam raises his eyebrows.

Bucky’s fingers lace together. ‘There was some colonel from another division, got himself all bent out of shape because Gabe was leading a briefing- Y’know, as though Gabe wasn’t a college man and spoke half a dozen languages. Him and Monty were the best educated out of us and Monty was a Lord, if you please!’ His head tilts and Rhodes with something close to fascination digests the unexpected animation in the other man’s face, the lightness in the blue eyes. ‘Went to Oxford - Monty, not Gabe - but I don’t think he actually finished… Always said he got sent down, whatever the hell that means. Anyway. This colonel asshole bawled out Gabe for, I dunno, daring to open his mouth, I guess. He stood and took it. One of the best guys I ever knew and-’ His eyes slide to Sam and his features tighten a fraction. ‘Colonel Phillips shut the other guy down but he couldn’t really do anything. According to protocol at the time we were the ones out of line, on just about every front. But-’ Bucky sits back suddenly, his shoulders throwing open and his chin lifts with an old defiance. ‘We got hold of an extra strength laxative, bribed one of the privates on duty to lace his food with it. Didn’t make it out of the canteen before it took effect. Right there, in front of everyone. It was a petty revenge, I guess, and it didn’t change anything, but it made Gabe laugh.’

It takes a moment and then an explosive laugh forces its way down Rhodes’ nose. ‘Well, shit,’ he says. And Bucky’s eyes crinkle.

‘Pretty much, yeah.’

Sam throws his head back.

They are still laughing when Miranda sashays her way back over and the coffee she pours is hot and strong and she preens prettily when Bucky throws her a wink over the rim of his cup. When she retreats, Sam throws a narrow-eyed glare at him.

‘I used to think Steve was exaggerating, but you are actually even worse.’

Blue eyes pop wide, ridiculously clear and innocent. ‘First: Steve exaggerated most things because he was a dramatic asshole. Second: what are you talking about?’

‘You and women,’ Sam says, heavy and with loaded accusation.

‘I-’ Bucky looks actively wounded. ‘What- What do you mean me and women?’

‘The flirting. I have warned you about the flirting.’

The line of Bucky’s shoulders relaxes a fraction. ‘I was raised to treat all women with charm and respect.’

‘He was very charming,’ Rhodes adds, a neutral tone. ‘And respectful.’ Sam glares at him with purpose before turning back to Bucky.

‘Steve told me all about the Don Juan of Brooklyn.’

‘For the love of-’ Bucky sets his cup down, leans both elbows on the table. A snap in his eyes but there’s a look behind them, something earnest and a little anxious, like this is something that he really needs Sam to understand. ‘Steve Rogers couldn’t talk to a woman if his life depended on it. Scratch that: he could barely to any adult human as though he himself was an actual adult human.’ His head tilts back and he looks at Sam down his eyes. ‘I’m guessing that when he, uh, befriended you, you actually did most of the heavy lifting on the making-friends-like-a-normal-person front?’

Sam’s lips push together. ‘Maybe.’

Bucky takes some of his coffee and replaces the cup with a more delicate precision. ‘Exactly. Look, I could say hello to a girl and in Steve’s eyes that made me Cary Grant. I mean, this is the guy who for a good eighteen months or so thought that fondue meant fooling around instead of, y’know, a bowl of melted cheese.’

‘What the..?’ 

Bucky meets Rhodes’ startled bemusement with an expression of long-held fondness edged with tumultuous shadows. ‘Story for another day, maybe.’ He puts his focus back on Sam. ‘Okay, so maybe I was doll dizzy but that doesn’t mean I was active duty.’ His face scrunches with disapproval and there’s something scathing edging his tone.

Sam blinks at him, pained, the question already rising to his lips.

‘Mad about girls but not promiscuous,’ Rhodes translates smoothly and enjoys the baffled betrayal in Sam’s face and the pleased surprise in Bucky’s. He shrugs one shoulder. ‘Heard those from my grandpa. He was a jazz musician. A pianist.’

The words feel creaky from disuse, the memories that he doesn’t share all that often feeling suddenly fragile. 

Bucky Barnes leans forward, face alight with a sudden interest. ‘Really?’

‘Really.’ He takes a sip of water, presses a napkin against his lips. Bucky still watches him, not pushing, not asking for anything more, but the blue eyes are so bright and alert, so filled with keen interest that Rhodes finds himself leaning towards him. Jesus. If HYDRA had been really smart, they would have weaponised that, he thinks. Anyone on the receiving end of that look would have just done whatever James Barnes wanted. 

‘LJ Rhodes,’ he says. ‘Leroy James.’

It’s Sam who smiles then. ‘You’re named for him?

‘Yeah. He was never big. He was a session musician but he played with a few of the big bands back in the day. Sometimes in the clubs in Harlem in the Thirties.’

‘Huh.’ Bucky sits back again. ‘I wonder if I ever saw him?’ More to himself than anyone else. 

Rhodes studies his hands for a moment. ‘Tony-’ He clears his throat, tries again. ‘Tony tracked down an album he played on. Probably ‘bout the only time he ever got into a studio. It- it’s pretty good.’

The expression in Sam’s face is gentle. ‘Old man over here will be wanting it for his vinyl collection. Damn thing’s twice as big each time I see it.’

‘Vinyl has better sound quality,’ Bucky says, his head nodding. ‘It’s richer.’

‘Damn right,’ Rhodes agrees.

‘Oh my God…’

The food arrives, defusing the escalation and there’s silence as everyone digs in, adding mustard and ketchup and whatever else is needed. Bucky has, indeed, been given extra extra, judging by the truly mind-boggling amount of food placed in front of him. Rhodes tries to imagine sitting with Steve Rogers like this and fails. Steve had been a good guy, of course, an incredible person but they had never been close. The good captain had always been, or at least seemed, a little too uptight and closed-off for Rhodes’ taste. Even in those five years when they had all clung on to one another with a hopeless determination, they had been courteous and professional and little more. If he had ever thought about it, and he has to honestly admit he had not, not really, Rhodes had sort of assumed that Steve had his own people. Hearing Sam and Barnes now… Maybe he hadn’t. Coming out of the ice after seventy years and carrying on with something like the same fight he’d just left minus everyone he’d ever known or cared for-

Yeah. Maybe Steve Rogers had never really been as okay as they had all blithely assumed and maybe he’d been too used to pretending everything was okay to let anyone know any different.

The suffocating loneliness of it all must have been unbearable.

He looks at Bucky Barnes. The man, very clearly, does have at least one person; more, judging by the snippets of conversations he’s overheard. Still. Those who don’t learn from history and all that. 

He tunes back into whatever nonsense the pair opposite are on about and it still seems to be about women and music, which, okay, fair enough. Despite the mountain of food on Bucky Barnes’ plate, he still sneaks a couple fries off Sam’s and the under-the-table kicking resumes. None of it breaks the amiable bickering. Rhodes puts his elbows on the table, waits for a lull and puts his eyes on Bucky. ‘So, you were a doll dizzy ducky shincracker back in the day, huh?’

Bucky blinks, surprise working its way across his face in increments and then he laughs. It is, Rhodes realises, the first time that he’s ever actually heard him laugh. A warm, bright sound with his head thrown back and his nose actually scrunches up. He looks at Sam and the delight in Sam’s face at his friend’s simple uninhibited joy feels like almost too much. It’s pleasure and pride in seeing a life recovered from unimaginable darkness. Rhodes feels a sudden and wholly unexpected fierce affection for both of them.

Still both idiots, though.

But, he would have to admit, he’s always had a soft spot for a certain kind of idiot.

‘Wow.’ Bucky’s face is still alive with amusement. ‘Haven’t been called that in a real long time.’

It’s a wide, genuine smile and Rhodes finds it all too easy to respond in kind. ‘My grandpa’s record… If you wanted to hear it-’ He clears his throat. ‘Probably past time I had you two idiots ‘round anyhow.’

Bucky blinks again and the smile morphs into something softer, more tentative around the edges. ‘Yeah, I, uh- Yeah. That’d be real nice.’

Sam looks triumphant, his gap-toothed smile dialled-up to a ludicrous megawatt brilliance.

‘What?’ Rhodes demands.

Sam grins and eats his fries.

Bucky heads back to New York and his by now slightly more hospitable apartment in Brooklyn to do- Whatever it is he does. He had once, with a straight face, said something about a book club and to this day Sam is still not sure whether or not he was joking.

Sam returns to his own place. He finds a note from Bucky on his kitchen counter, written in Bucky’s elegant, old-fashioned penmanship.

Two twenties rest next to the note and there’s a part of Sam that immediately wants to hop the next train or flight to NYC and throw the bills at Bucky because they are friends Goddammit! - but Bucky really does drink him out of house and home and it is the very least that he can do, the asshole. Also, Bucky has used up the last of the milk and could absolutely have told Sam that when he was right fucking there. Asshole. He doesn’t need the milk right now, though. That will be a Future Sam problem. Sam opens his fridge, gets himself a beer and tells himself that he can enjoy it without fear of the remaining bottles vanishing in the next quarter hour.

Yup.

Drinking his own Goddamn beer, all on his Goddamn own.

Fun.

He answers emails, reads over reports, does all of the usual low-key normal stuff that anyone does on any given weekday evening. But through it all he can feel something running under his skin, like a series of little electric shocks that leave his skin raw to the touch and his nerves jangling. When he turns in for the night he makes a valiant attempt at sleep but sees starbursts behind his eyes and would damn well swear that he can see rows of code, like the inside of his own damn head has turned into some kind of Matrix bullshit.

And he knows he shouldn’t and that it isn’t really fair but he grabs his phone and taps out a message because he needs to feel that he isn’t the only one losing his mind.

He doesn’t expect the phone to start ringing, but it does; it buzzes in his hand, the screen casting a pale sickly light against the bedroom walls. 

‘Okay, you got me,’ Bucky’s voice rumbles at him by way of greeting. ‘What the hell are you talking about now?’

‘Blade Runner.’ Sam flops back against his pillows, watches indistinct shadows crawl across the ceiling. ‘It’s a sci-fi classic - I would have thought that your giant nerd ass would’ve been all over that.’ He hears a heavy breath get blown down Bucky’s nose followed by a waiting silence. ‘You know,’ he continues, ‘it’s, uh, damn, what’s it called..?’ Sam stares at the ceiling. ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’

There’s a rustling sound from Bucky’s end. ‘Yeah? What about it?’

‘What d’you mean what about it?’

Bucky’s voice sounds slightly more echoey, like he’s moved to a different room. ‘It’s a good novel, but what’s it got to do with anything?’

Sam closes his eyes, shaking his head slightly. ‘Man, I should have known. Blade Runner is the movie of the book.’

‘Huh.’ It’s Bucky’s piqued-interest noise.

‘How can you not know this?’

‘Been kinda busy with other things, Sam.’ Dry. And fair. He can hear water running, rattle of cups.

‘You making tea?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘What kind?’

Fumbling. ‘Chamomile. With rose and lavender.’

‘Ooh, fancy.’ Maybe tea would help, now that he thinks about it. Sam swings his legs off the bed, takes a moment to steady because the world still has a slight computer game feel to it. Okay, let’s see if we can find the keyboard shortcut to get Captain Sam out of the door. Bucky’s voice continues to rumble against his ear.

‘It will taste like dirty water, Sam. That is the default taste for tea.’ As Sam  makes his way to his open-plan living-room-and-kitchen, he can hear Bucky pottering about it while he continues grousing. Bucky, he has learned, gets weirdly chatty after dark; on flights, in briefing rooms, at extraction points and shitty safehouses, Bucky will start a rambling monologue either about whatever aspect of modern life has most recently annoyed him or whichever new to him but ancient to everyone else movie or book or album he has discovered. And any and every thought in between that has caught in the wires of his big old cyborg brain. As long as Sam grunts occasionally, Bucky seems happy to carry on without any real input or encouragement. He wonders if this is new or if Bucky has always been like this. One of those things that he would like to ask Steve, if Steve was actually still around. But, on the whole, it doesn’t really matter. Whatever it is, it’s theirs. Or, at least, it’s Sam’s. It’s become a reliable, recognisable part of Sam’s life and it’s strangely soothing, like it’s his own personal white noise. He puts the phone on speaker, sets it on the counter.

‘In my day drinks didn’t pretend to be better than they were…’

Sam grins to himself. He hasn’t bothered with the main lights, relying on the bulbs in the stove hood. The corners of the kitchen and the small living room beyond are swaddled in shadow, strange patterns writing themselves across the darkness.

‘Hey, you also seeing flashing lights everywhere?’ 

An answering groan rises. ‘I thought it was just me. Think I might have to take myself to the computer repair store and get rebooted.’

Nothing so fancy as rose tea, or whatever it was. Sam snatches down a box of mint, his lips thinning. ‘Not funny.’

A sputter. ‘Oh, so you can make cyborg jokes about me but I can’t?’

‘Damn right.’

‘Kinda hypocritical, don’t you think?’ There’s no heat behind the words. Bucky’s voice sounds low and amused.

He pulls out a mug. ‘No. I don’t.’

‘I think that there might be some issues here that we need to unpack.’

Water tumbles out of the faucet, splashing high against Sam’s hands and arms. ‘Okay, who are you and what have you done with James Buchanan Barnes?’

‘If you wanna get really technical it’s James Buchanan Michael Barnes.’

Sam pauses, kettle in hand hovering over the hob. Michael? ‘Where did the Michael come from?’

‘Confirmation name. For Saint Michael. Archangel with a sword - he seemed pretty cool.’

There’s an uncomplicated sweetness that Sam feels lodge somewhere behind his ribs. The kettle starts a faint hum. ‘I’m heading down to Delacroix on Saturday. You wanna come down?’ Sarah will never forgive him if he doesn’t ask. Nor will the boys. And it’s not like it’s exactly a hardship having Bucky around in his hometown. He’s the one White friend the whole of Delacroix has in common.

A sound like Bucky sucking on a tooth. ‘That’d be nice but I promised T’Challa I’d help out at the outreach centre in Harlem - they’ve got a sort of community drive for ex-gang members.’

Sam frowns into the darkness beyond his kitchen window. ‘You were never in a gang- Were you?’

A hint of laughter. ‘I was not. But a lot of them have PTSD and- And most of ‘em were just kids when they were made to do some pretty messed up things.’

Sam sucks in a breath. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I know. Let me know when you’re finished, though. There might still be time. I’ll let you use the power-washer on the boat - you know how much you like that.’

‘I do enjoy the power-washer,’ Bucky agrees, a wistful note. ‘It’s very satisfying.’ A pause. ‘Your kettle’s boiling.’

Before it had even given a hint of a whistle, but it starts sputtering just as Sam turns. Stupid Goddamn super-soldier hearing. Mint-scented steam rises from the mug when he pours the water in. He blows on it, out of habit, before taking a sip. He switches the phone back off speaker and holds it against his ear. ‘How’s your fancy tea?’

‘Horrible.’ Bucky sounds weirdly, smugly, satisfied about that.

Sam huffs out a laugh, leans against his kitchen counter. ‘You do you, Buck.’

‘Think you can sleep now?’

The electric buzz under his skin has settled into a gentle hum, smoother and less jangly against his nerves. ‘Yeah. I think so. ’Night, Buck.’

‘Goodnight, Sam.’

He stands and enjoys the dark stillness and when he falls back into bed he’s welcomed into a dreamless sleep.

Sam spends a little over a week in Delacroix, working on the boat, picking the boys up from school, helping them with their homework, playing with them out back in the yard. He takes a haul of second-hand clothing that Sarah’s been collecting down to the community centre, returns to the same centre with a vat of mac-’n-cheese that Sarah made for the community kitchen for anyone who might need it. He fixes some fishing nets, poses for an endless series of selfies  with the clients when Shereene Boudreaux collars him outside of her salon, and loses two games of chess to Leon Landry in a row. Leon smiles at him kindly. Miss Landry sits prim and straight-backed and tells him that Young Sergeant Barnes would have made it to stalemate at the very least.

It’s something of a theme of the week: the whereabouts of Bucky. The other man has been such a constant these past months that Sam hadn’t actually realised it until he was absent.

He also becomes aware, after the third conversation referring to things that Sam has zero knowledge of, that Bucky has been in Delacroix plenty even when Sam hasn’t.

When he raises this with Sarah she lifts her chin, stares down her eyes and tells him, ‘He’s my friend, too.’

And goes back to stirring her roux at a ferocious pace.

Sam stares pointedly at her back and her braced shoulders. And the thin, intricate cuffs wound through her braids that he recognises as Wakandan in design.

But they mainly talk about the week-long business course Sarah applied for and has been accepted onto in New York. Her face glows with it, eyes bright and filled with a lightness that he remembers from years ago, from before all the everything, when she was all hope and possibility. Less hope now, but it’s still there and still some possibilities. A lot of possibilities: Sarah is incredible and deserves any and every happiness that may come her way. The course is subsidised, travel and subsistence, but it won’t really stretch to the exorbitant cost of accommodation in NYC unless she wants to stay in a flea-pit for a week.

‘Pity you don’t know anyone with a place in New York,’ Sam says, keeping his face bland and his voice neutral.

Her eyes meet his and one corner of her mouth quirks up.

Sam is barely back in DC before he’s scrambled: hostage situation in an office block in the financial district. Perps might be a splinter group of Flag Smashers or might be something else but it needs to be shut down before it escalates. Sam pushes open the doors of the make-shift ready room that’s been set up in the canteen of a neighbouring building and gets the smell of stale grease right in the face. A bank of scanners and monitors showing CCTV surveillance stacked on a counter, black kit bags spilling out tac gear and an alarming array of weapons. 

Torres grins over at him from a corner, arms trapped halfway in the shirt he’s pulling on and hadn’t bothered to completely unbutton first.

Bucky sits at one of the tables, already in most of his tac gear; the slate-grey compression shirt has had its left sleeve removed. His tablet is propped up against the salt and pepper pots and he stares at it with a warm, open expression that seems wholly at odds with both the arsenal surrounding them and the fact that a panel in his left wrist is open and he’s tinkering with something inside it.

‘…Of course it’s okay,’ he says. ‘God, it’s the least I can do after the number of times I’ve crashed at your place.’

‘You can’t call it crashing when it’s your home.’

The wide eyes turn an achingly fragile shade of blue. ‘Sarah-’

‘Bucky.’

Sam clears his throat. Bucky’s eyes raise and the faint stain of pink across his cheeks heightens. ‘Hey, uh, hey, Sam.’

Don Juan. Yeah. Right.

Sam jerks his head, marches himself across to stand behind Bucky and stares down at his sister’s face.

‘Hey, bro,’ she says with belligerent cheerfulness. Sam snorts.

‘I got my eyes on both of you,’ he says. Sarah’s expression is pitying.

Sam selects a corner and starts stripping off his street clothes and it isn’t his fault that it isn’t out of earshot because nowhere is.

‘Are Cass and AJ coming up with you?’

Sam pauses in his unbuttoning, shakes his head slowly.

‘No, they’re still in school so their grandparents are coming down from Lafayette to look after them. And even so, it’s not like I could keep an eye on them when I’m in class all day, right?’

‘No, yeah, right, of course…’ Bucky ends it with a weak laugh.

The conversation winds down as Sam smooths his suit into position. Still a thrill, every time, feeling the vibranium-infused weave under his hands, seeing the gleaming white with the accents of blue and red, feeling the familiar weight of the wing-pack against his back. As always, he snaps the wings open and closed again and-

‘Hold up.’ Bucky’s voice cuts through and Sam half-turns, watches as Bucky approaches with a divot deepening between his brows. ‘Something isn’t sitting right,’ he says and he reaches for Sam’s suit, his pack, his wings.

Sam submits to Bucky’s efficient hands and his calm, assessing, eyes. This, Sam always thinks when Bucky is like this, this is Sergeant Barnes, the hyper-competent NCO of every history textbook and documentary. Steve Rogers had been the one to come up with the plans but it had fallen to his XO to make sure that those plans worked, had been the one working out every angle, every potential flaw until The Plan had been as airtight as possible. The certainty of Bucky’s hands on his wings, the cool appraisal from those blue-grey eyes are as reassuring as they are exasperating and that exasperation arises purely from the one-way street that is Bucky’s focus of safety. Where other people are concerned, all of Bucky’s contingencies have contingencies; where his own survival is concerned, he’s audacious to the point of being reckless and Sam kind of hates him for that because without too much effort on anyone’s part, Bucky has fitted pretty seamlessly into Sam’s life and if anything happens to him everyone in Delacroix will hate Sam for it forever. Everyone including Sam.  

Torres jogs over, concern written clear across his face. ‘Everything okay?’ He moves to stand next to Bucky, behind the expanse of Sam’s vibranium wings.

‘Wings in.’ They snap to, snug against his back and he hears Bucky blow a breath down his nose. ‘Okay, out again.’

‘Wanna buy me dinner first?’ Because he can’t help it and he hears Bucky snort in response.

‘Yeah, yeah, asshole, like I haven’t heard that before.’

Sam grins to himself and extends his wings obediently. Light pressure against his back and he feel Torres crowding against both of them.

‘Stop breathing so hard, kid,’ Bucky says gruff, because he has consistently called him nothing but either kid or Torres for the past year and if he ever unbends enough to call him Joaquín, probably none of them will ever recover from it. ‘Here, hold this.’

He hears Torres suck in a whistling breath and damn, has Bucky given him one of his kimoyo beads to hold? Scratch calling him by his first name, in the Bucky-verse this is probably the equivalent of a marriage proposal. 

In his peripheral vision, Sam can see blue light scanning across his wings and he feels something shifting in the layering of the plates, a recalibration that ripples across the expanse.

‘Okay. Pull ‘em in. Out.’ A moment and then a grunt of approval. ‘Yeah, okay. That’s better.’

Sam’ wings slide into the pack; he turns and Joaquín Torres is indeed standing with one of Bucky’s kimoyo beads in the middle of his outstretched palm, his dark eyes wide and he stares at it as though too terrified to breathe in its vicinity. Bucky takes it back off him.

‘Thanks, kid,’ he says. ‘Nice work.’

Torres’ pleasant face takes on a ruddy hue of pleased surprise and then he shakes himself. ‘Yeah. No. Sure. Anytime.’ And he floats back to his corner.

‘You could just call him Joaquín,’ Sam says.

‘He’s doing great,’ Bucky tells him, arms folded across his chest, head tilted back and something warm and almost fond in his face. ‘Don’t want to spoil it now.’

Sam shakes his head and then sets his eyes on the other man. ‘So, Sarah’s staying with you while she’s doing her course, huh?’

Bucky’s arms remain folded but his expression morphs incrementally through anxious, mild panic and a faint determination. Sam holds the gaze.

‘I-’ Bucky starts, his throat bobbing.

‘I’m glad,’ Sam says. ‘She’ll be safe there.’

Bucky’s mouth stays open and then closes with an audible click.

Sam busies himself with running a pre-mission diagnostic on the Redwing drones and waits for the fizzing ball of perplexed energy that is currently Bucky Barnes to subside into something more like his usual laconic, grumpy-ass self.

‘I watched that Blade Runner movie,’ Bucky says eventually, and when Sam spins to look at him he’s wearing his habitual expression of muted snarkiness with just a hint of mayhem at the edges. 

‘Oh?’ Sam tilts his head.

‘A little derivative of Metropolis in the visuals, don’t you think?’

‘What the-’

‘But it was pretty good. Thanks for the recommendation.’

‘Oh,’ Sam says again. ‘Yeah. Well, it’s a classic.’ He grins. ‘So. Deckard. Replicant or not?’

Bucky’s shoulders rise and he lets out a long breath down his nose. ‘I watched the sequel - pointless, by the way - so I know the answer to that one. Which kinda ruins the point of the story. And anyway, are you really saying that Deckard is more interesting than Roy Batty?’

A smart retort rises to Sam’s lips and a nanosecond later he thinks it through. Because, sure, Bucky has a point anyhow, but also… 

‘It’s the howling, isn’t it? At the end? Roy Batty howling, the Howling Commandos, White Wolf… Yeah, I get it.’

A moment and then Bucky’s face creases with a wary affection and knowing amusement. ‘Yes, Sam, you got me. That’s the part that really resonated.’ 

Redwing and his sister settle snug into their cradles in Sam’s suit and he pulls the cowl up. ‘That’s what I figured.’

They fall in, Bucky’s shoulders rolling in that way he has when they’re walking into the field and there’s something weirdly reassuring about the motion.

‘Pity they left out the goat, though.’

Sam’s feet stutter. ‘What?’

‘A goat. There’s supposed to be a goat. And a sheep.’ A pause. ‘And a toad.’

‘-the fuck?’

‘But the last two actually are electric. And the goat gets killed, so maybe best they left it out?’

Sam stops, stares at him. ‘Buck…’

Wide blue eyes, all earnest innocence. ‘Yes?’

Sam blows a breath down his nose. ‘Nothing.’

Sometimes the intel is all good, the mission goes well and it’s business as usual.

Sometimes the intel is not good, the mission starts going sideways pretty much from the start and-

And that’s still business as usual. Unfortunately.

More hired muscle than had been reported originally, way more weaponry and a gas that the hostage-takers are threatening to disperse that might be a highly transmittable neurotoxin or might just be nitrous oxide.

But they’ve already shot one hostage. So, they’re serious. 

‘Well, this is definitely a SNAFU.’ Bucky’s voice comes over the comms, more resigned than anything else.

Despite the rocks pulling at his stomach, Sam feels one corner of his mouth twist up. ‘Gotta update your slang there, man.’

‘You can’t tell me no-one says SNAFU anymore. I mean, I have distinctly heard you say FUBAR on more than one occasion and it’s pretty much the same thing. Anyway, SNAFU has class.’

Sam huffs out a laugh despite himself and despite the grim intel coming in through his HUD. ‘How you figure that?’

‘Monty used to say it - Peggy, too, sometimes,’ Bucky continues, reasonably. 'And Brits even manage to make that sound classy. I think it’s the accent.’

‘Wanna do something about this SNAFU?’

‘I got your six, Cap.’

There are lots of people running around in tac pants and black bomber jackets that Sam guesses are doing duty as some kind of uniform. They sort of work in pairs, with a stilted back-and-forth that shows they’ve had some sort of training but aren’t really used to this sort of thing.

But it means that there’s probably a training camp somewhere, and that means there’s possibly more of them. Sam files away the information for later. Right now he concentrates on the intel coming in from the Redwings. Rhodes had touched down in full War Machine armour just before they went in and Sam feeds through the information over the comms. They’ve cleared the floors above and below, slowly driving the opposition into one wing, onto one floor. 

They have some sort of advanced weaponry, though, along with the threatened gas that so far hasn’t materialised.

‘Probably why they shot the hostage,’ Bucky says, grim, when Sam wonders about it. ‘Or we’re about to get a real big surprise. Can’t wait to find out which one it is.’

There is no gas. What there is are two remaining hostages and three people in the same make-shift uniform, two men and one woman, arguing with each other in taut, panicked tones.

When War Machine punches a hole in the ceiling, dropping down fast between them and the hostages, there’s a second where no-one does anything.

Then Sam and Bucky storm the room and the weapons start firing, lighting it up like a fireworks display. Glass explodes, walls pulverised, windows shatter sending shards fluttering through the air. Sam’s wings snap out, propelling him halfway across the room in one easy swoop and whatever Bucky’s done to them they feel even sharper, more precise somehow. Rhodes has already hauled the hostages out.

Some kind of grenade goes off and Sam sees Bucky caught in the blast, sees him roll with it and come up firing, gun in each hand. 

A figure charges at him and Sam swings the shield, feels the force of it as vibranium crashes into flesh and bone.

It’s silent. 

Creaking wood, tinkling glass, twisted metal settling. His own heavy breathing. Bucky’s booted feet scrunch across the floor.

‘Sam.’ Sharp. His head tilting, inquisitive, eyes searching. ‘You good?’

Sam blinks, pushes the goggles up. ‘Yeah. You?’

Bucky nods. Sam raises his eyebrows. Bucky rolls his eyes.

‘I’m fine.’

‘That was quite a hit you took.’

‘I’ve had-’

‘Worse, yeah, I know, you tell me that every time. Maybe the hits wouldn’t be so bad if you had a proper suit instead of, y’know, a glorified ski jacket.’

Bucky huffs out a breath. ‘I don’t need a suit. Practically indestructible cyborg, remember?’

‘I’m sure Shuri could work up something for you,’ Sam continues. ‘Get a nice little wolf insignia on it; y’know, keep it on brand.’ He feels something warm and sticky and when he brushes his hand against his nose it comes up bright red. Damn. He prods his nose delicately. It doesn’t feel broken. 

And then Bucky’s hands are on his face, tilting his head back and peering at him, eyes all intent and that particular shade of clear earnest blue. ‘Better get you to a medic.’

Sam swats his hands away. ‘Jeez, it’s a nosebleed.’

Bucky, ever the optimist, wears a flat, closed-off look. ‘Could be something worse.’

‘It’s not.’ Sam wipes at his nose again. ‘You got some Kleenex or something? Or, I dunno, an old-man handkerchief? Disposable tissues too modern for you?’

Bucky glares silently but does, indeed, pull a handful of tissues from one of the innumerable pockets in his jacket. Then scrunches his way across the floor and crouches in front of a row of sleek silver canisters, the matte finish dulled by dust and debris. 

‘Looks like they couldn’t get them open.’

‘Thank God for stupid bad guys, huh?’ Voice muffled by the ball of tissues.

‘Yeah.’ Bucky stands, takes in the wrecked room and the still bodies and the spreading pools of blood and his eyes glitter, steely under the swaying remnants of the strip-lights. ‘Thank God.’

When they get back to Sam’s place, Bucky heads straight for the fridge that Sam has considerately stocked with Bucky’s favoured Japanese craft beer. Because he can’t just drink a Corona like a normal person.

Still.

That Japanese stuff is pretty good.

Sam takes the bottle Bucky hands him, leans against the kitchen counter and keeps his eyes closed. When his phone buzzes discreetly in one of the many ingenious pockets Shuri had designed into his suit, Sam puts down his beer and pushes himself to a standing position with a little grunt. He squints at the screen.

‘Rhodey’s got IDs on our bad guys.’

‘Oh?’ Opposite him, Bucky holds his bottle loose between his mismatched hands. 

‘So far they’re a bunch of nobodies. A few DUIs, a couple of stretches for B-and-E, some drug charges. If they’re a militia they’re either real discreet or real new.’

‘Oh. Good.’

One corner of Sam’s mouth turns up. He places the phone face down on the counter, reclaims his beer and takes a long pull, crisp and clean against his tongue.

‘Any word on the gas canisters?’ 

‘Not yet. Rhodey’s thinking of getting Bruce to take a look.’

Bucky grunts, nods. And winces. ‘Yeah, that makes sense.’ One hand goes to the back of his head.

Sam sets his bottle down again with enough force that the glass rings against the counter. ‘Man, I fucking knew it. What the hell is wrong with you?’

A scowl is aimed at him that might be more effective if Bucky’s head wasn’t ducked down with his big eyes raised so the result is more like a puppy trying to be fierce. ‘I’m fine.’

Which he has said with monotonous regularity ever since they walked out of the partly bombed-out office building. He said it to Sam, to Rhodes, to Torres, to the round-faced EMT who had attempted to descend on him with gauze and pain meds and a very obvious and pretty serious crush.

Sam folds his arms. ‘Uh-huh.’

Bucky holds up his hand. ‘See? No blood.’

‘You heal in, like, five minutes. No blood doesn’t mean nothing’s wrong. And if you’re in pain, something is wrong, asshole.’

‘You gotta a real cute bedside manner, Wilson.’

Sam snorts. ‘I have a pain-in-the ass centenarian partner with no sense of self-preservation.’

‘Oh!’ The ocean-blue eyes blaze. ‘Says the adrenaline junkie who thinks he can take down an RPG with a kind word!’

‘That…’ Sam’s mouth works. ‘That doesn’t even mean anything!’ 

They glare at each other.

‘Are you in pain?’ Sam growls.

‘No!’ Bucky blows a breath down his nose and some of the defensive hunch goes out of his shoulders. ‘It- It just feels kinda weird.’

‘Weird how?’

‘Jesus, I dunno, Sam, weird!’

Sam pushes himself away from the counter again. ‘Okay, lemme take a look. Come into the bathroom, it’s got better lighting.’

He stalks off, ignoring the immobile bionic man standing giving him the stink eye until Bucky finally huffs out a breath and follows him. 

The bathroom is a small space, light bouncing off the clean white tile. Bucky eyes everything, Sam included, suspiciously which is ridiculous considering the fact that when he’s not in Brooklyn or Delacroix, he’s here. 

Drinking Sam’s beer and using up all the milk.

Bucky eventually consents to crouching down enough that Sam can take a look at the back of his head, parting the thick dark hair until-

He scrambles back, his heart lurching up into his throat and his stomach dropping to the floor. He moved so fast that Bucky had slipped sideways, hands scrabbling against the basin to keep himself upright.

‘What the hell?’ Bucky peers at him, more surprise than annoyance written across his face.

Sam feels his breath punching through his chest and his mind runs through a thousand scenarios, eyes searching for a weapon.

‘Sam?’ Eyes still so big and blue, concern edging in, pulling at the lines around his mouth. ‘Jesus, Sam, it can’t be that bad.’

Sam braces himself against the wall, palms flat against the cold tile behind him, all of his muscles braced. Bucky takes a half-step forward and whatever he sees in Sam’s face stops him. He remains still, empty hands raised in the air and hurt and worry and confusion crash through his expressive features. 

‘Sam?’

‘What are you?’

Dark brows pull together. ‘What- Okay. I- I’m gonna call Rhodes.’

So calm and reassuring and all so fucking wrong.  

Fear sparks over into anger and Sam shoves away from the wall, forward a few paces and Bucky falls back, an automatic response, and he still looks so Goddamned worried.

‘You explain that.’ A rough gesture towards the back of Bucky’s head.

Sam watches as Bucky eases away from him. As he looks around the small bathroom with its wash-worn soft towels and the pervasive scent of Old Spice. As he angles the shaving mirror until he can see the thick hatch of dark hair that sits oddly, like there’s a bulge under it.

Watches as Bucky sees the flap of skin loose from the scalp and he sees the precise moment that Bucky sees what Sam had seen beneath it, the smooth metal plating and chips and lights and wires where there should have been flesh and bone.

Chapter Text

‘No. No no no…’

Sam presses himself back against his patch of cold tile that seems to be leeching all of the heat out of his body. A watery feeling running through his bones and the beat of his heart feels too hard and too high up in his chest.

A scant few feet away from him the Bucky Barnes that isn’t, can’t be, Bucky is staring at an unfixed point, face bone white and his breath shudders shallow and fast through his chest, words tumbling out.

‘This- This isn’t- I’m not- Oh God, this isn’t real, it can’t be real…’

Sam lowers himself to the floor, pulls his knees up to his chest and concentrates on taking regular, controlled breaths.

‘This is the gas, right?’ Sam raises his head and catches the full force of wide blue eyes. ‘There- Okay, there were other canisters and this is just some hallucinogen. Or-’ Bucky’s throat bobs, hard, like he’s going to throw up and is trying not to. ‘Or m-m-maybe- Maybe it was always like this. Huh? You think, Sam? It- It’s just some left-over HYDRA shit in- in my head?’

From his hunched-up space on the floor, Sam stares at him and for a moment he thinks, or maybe kinda wants to, that this is just some stupid prank, that Bucky has taken this whole Blade Runner shit and run with it and this is the dumb-ass conclusion and Sam will kill him as soon as his heart rate drops down to something approaching normal.

Except that Bucky is staring at him with a sort of crazed desperation, like Sam has all the answers, like Sam can make all of this go away and he looks as absolutely fucking terrified as Sam feels.

‘I think Shuri probably would have mentioned something,’ Sam says and the words come out croaky and with more gentleness than he had intended.

Bucky nods dumbly and then his face starts to crumple horribly and he slides down his own patch of wall. His body lurches as though he’s retching and his shoulders shake.

‘You didn’t know,’ Sam says, soft.

‘…No.’ Voice cracking on that one syllable. Bucky squeezes his eyes shut, hands wringing together, metal biting viciously into flesh.

Or not flesh, Sam reminds himself and feels a little hiccup of hysteria. He swallows it down. The hand-wringing looks painful.

‘You’re gonna hurt yourself doing that,’ Sam tells him, words coming out like they’ve been dragged over gravel.

Bucky opens his eyes, stares at Sam and a ghastly smile flickers at the corners of his mouth. If anything the hands tighten. ‘Machines don’t feel pain.’

‘You’re not a-’ The denial rises automatically and dies just as fast. A spasm twists across Bucky’s mouth, his blue eyes a hard glitter of hurt. Sam sucks in a breath. He’s still tucked into his corner, back pressed against cold tile and he feels his whole body starting to object. He loosens himself out fractionally and Bucky pulls himself further in reflexively, making himself smaller which is objectively impossible for a man his size in this tiny space. ‘Can we get out of the bathroom, at least? I am too old for this shit, man, gonna need traction to get the kinks out my spine.’

Normally, Bucky would gleefully jump on that, give him some shit right back. His chest rises and falls and he watches Sam and then nods. 

Sam keeps staring at the slow rise and fall of Bucky’s chest. The man is breathing. What looks like sweat beads along his hairline, a sheen on the skin. Why would a robot need to breathe? To sweat? He drank a beer thirty minutes ago, for Christ’s sake, he ate two fucking protein bars in the ready room before they headed out, has he just been walking around eating and drinking like a normal person? 

‘Is this a joke?’ Sam doesn’t mean to blurt it out. ‘I mean, if you set all this up just to fuck with me- I won’t be mad, okay? You pulled it off real good, you got me, but-’ He swallows down the tight ball in his throat. ‘Just tell me.’

Silvery-blue rimming wide pupils, eyes deep in hollowed-out sockets. Bucky had pushed himself up into a half-crouch and he stares at Sam -breath in, breath out, breath in, brea- with a tremor running through his face. ‘Does this look like a joke?’

‘Fuck. No, no, I know, you-you wouldn’t do that.’ Sam’s chin drops to his chest and concentrates on box-breathing for a few long beats, tries to root himself in the familiar tactile sensations under his hands. Smooth tile, rough grouting between, fluffy tufts of the bathmat. Bucky’s jokes aren’t cruel, they’re just the usual kind of asshole-y nonsense, like hacking Sam’s phone and setting the ringtone to some hip-hop version of the Star-Spangled Man theme that is actually pretty catchy; or that dumb shield-shaped taser keychain for when you don’t have your real shield, Sam; or that falcon plushie in a mock-up of Sam’s Cap suit and who would even look for something like that? that Bucky keeps hiding in Sam’s locker or flight-bag. But, ha, the joke’s on Bucky ‘cos Sam went on Etsy and found an updated Bucky Bear in tac gear and a black and gold arm and Sam’s just waiting for the perfect moment to spring it on Bucky-

‘Sam.’

He looks up and Bucky is looking down at him, lines of concern carved into his face and his shoulders are taut with tension and unhappiness. Sam pushes himself up, follows Bucky’s stiff-legged gait out into the living room and feels another wave of unreality hit, spiky against his skin like a fever-dream. The two beer bottles still stand on the kitchen counter, pools of condensation at the bases.

Bucky stands in one corner of the small kitchen space, arms folded and he holds himself very still, his face flattened out into something neutral and contained. Sam scrubs at his eyes, runs a hand over his head, down his neck and works out some of the kinks.

‘You want another beer? Those are probably flat by now. Or tea? Think I’ll make some tea.’

Eyes narrow fractionally. ‘What?’

‘Tea,’ Sam repeats, slow and clear, ‘you want some?’ He doesn’t wait for an answer, sets about filling the kettle. His hands shake only a little and he feels pretty proud of himself about that. He sets the kettle on the stove, pulls out mugs and they rattle together. ‘Guess that explains the no blood from the head wound.’ Head wounds bleed. A lot. Even when they aren’t that bad. God knows, Bucky’s had plenty but as with all of his other accumulated injuries on any given mission they start healing pretty quick. Sam frowns. ‘Wait, can you bleed, though?’

Bucky makes a little humming sound in his throat and his lips push out. ‘Dunno.’

He takes two long steps forward, his usual loping grace, left hand reaching out and Sam’s brain is lagging, still stuck in a spiral of numbing fear and denial, so he doesn’t process what is happening, not right away. Bucky’s hand closes around the hilt of one of the expensive and wicked-sharp ceramic kitchen knives Sam keeps proudly in their special block, pulls it out and in the same motion slices the blade deep across his right forearm.

‘What the fuck are you- Jesus, Bucky!’ Bile thick and bitter sitting against the base of his tongue and there’s a roaring in his ears. ‘I didn’t mean slice yourself open!’

‘No blood.’ An even-toned, calm reply.

Sam feels his heart kick in his chest and stares with a horrified fascination. Beneath the surface layer of skin it looks like layers of latex laced with thin wiring and the cut is deep enough to expose the glitter of a metal skeletal structure. And- 

Sam blinks, shakes his head. It had seemed a trick of the light but as he stares the edges of the gash start to pull towards each other, knitting together until there is nothing but the smooth tanned skin of Bucky’s forearm. 

‘Huh. Now that’s a neat trick,’ Bucky says. He turns his arm under the kitchen light, examining it with an expression utterly devoid of emotion. Assessing, detached. Computing. It is so horribly reminiscent of the Winter Soldier that Sam feels a cold lance of fear race across his skin.

He thinks of Bucky’s hands, steady and reassuring on his wings only a few hours ago. Those same wings carrying him up high enough that his body would be a smear of smashed red if they failed but they hadn’t. They’d been fast and responsive and Bucky’s voice had been cool and calm in his ear over the comms and together they had stopped the bad guys, saved the hostages, saved so many people.

‘Lemme fix your head.’

Bucky pulls in a breath and his face is that smoothed out mask of blandness that Sam really hates. ‘What?’

‘Half your head’s hanging open, man. Now we know that can be fixed. So. We can fix it.’

There’s a pause. 

‘Think it’ll take a lot more than that to fix this head, pal.’ 

Laughter erupts from Sam's lips and then it goes on for longer than it should and then it turns into something that’s more like wracked sobs and Sam feels sort of sick about all of it because the voice and the bleakly humorous tone and the way he tilts his head with his eyes narrowing slightly is all just Bucky Barnes. All sass and attitude and so much fucking love and hope and belief that’s still there, after everything, after everything, and Sam feels the hysteria rising because he can’t do this, not now, he can’t lose the one person who has had his back the whole damn time. Even when he’d been an abrasive asshole all up in Sam’s face over the Goddamn shield he’d still thrown himself out of a plane without a parachute to have Sam’s back and every second of every day ever since has been filled one way or another with Bucky Goddamn Barnes.

His chest hitches and heaves and he looks across the narrow space that separates them and the lines etched into Bucky’s face and the dark craters of his eyes and the silver-blue glitter deep down.

‘Let me take a look at it, at least.’ Voice soft and coaxing and way more steady than he feels.

Bucky keeps his eyes on Sam, all intent and stricken, and he moves slow, everything careful and contained and Sam isn’t sure if that is for his sake or for Bucky’s own.

The loose flap is about half the size of Sam’s hand and it has the same layered look that the self-inflicted wound on Bucky’s arm had. He gets Bucky’s hair between his fingers and it feels like real hair. Like really thick, strong hair that’s all soft and cared for. The hair had hidden the loose skin and had also, Sam can see now, been why the edges of the whatever it is hadn’t knit back together: a lock of hair has tucked itself under the flap and the edges running around the not-skin skin have curled inwards. This time he takes a good long look at the intricate plating, the delicate wires beneath. They’re beautiful, sort of. And Bucky’s scalp is warm under his hands, Sam realises, his body running hot just like always-

Except that this isn’t just like always.

‘You see an off-switch back there, go ahead and flip it,’ Bucky says, voice level but there’s a hardness running along the outside of the words that sets Sam’s teeth on edge.

‘There’s no off-switch.’

‘Pity.’

Sam eases the hair out, smoothing out the loose piece until it lays flat and watches as the seams fade into skin and hair. If Bucky had had a buzz-cut, he thinks, they might never have known.

He steps back and Bucky straightens, turns to face him.

‘Better?’ Sam asks. ‘You said it felt weird,’ he adds in response to Bucky’s raised eyebrows.

Bucky nods. ‘Better. Thanks.’ He runs his tongue along the edges of his teeth. ‘You haven’t asked.’

‘Asked what?’

‘Where is he? The real Bucky Barnes.’

And that’s been the thing, the scratch at the back of his mind, the cold fear coiled at the base of his spine, the thing he doesn’t really want to look at because he read the files, all of them, everything they had and it was one thing when Bucky Barnes was just Steve’s friend. Now he’s Sam’s friend. Now he knows why Steve was ready to risk everything, to burn down the whole Goddamn world for this one snarky, stubborn-ass guy from Brooklyn. Bucky Barnes had fit seamlessly into his life and now he really doesn’t want to think about what life would look like without him.

‘Okay. Where is he?’

‘I thought I was him until, what, twenty minutes ago. I don’t know. I really wish I did.’ Bucky’s lips push out and they twist into something harsh. ‘But then again I’m a robot so I might be lying.’

‘Are you?’ A reflexive response.

A ripple across Bucky’s face that he can’t quite swallow down. ‘I don’t know.’

Sam rears back slightly, a frown across his already taut face. ‘What does that mean?’

Steely blue glittering in the wrung-out hollows of his eyes. ‘Everything I’ve just said, I think it’s the truth. But someone could flip a switch somewhere and it all just gets overwritten. I don’t know. I can’t-’ Bucky's face trembles horribly. ‘I can’t trust my own mind.’ He laughs then, a harder harsher sound than Sam is accustomed to and it grates against his ears.

‘Don’t see why that’s funny.’ Sam’s voice seems to catch somewhere in the back of his throat before it makes it out of his mouth.

Face buried in his hands, then Bucky sucks in a breath and lifts his head; his chest shaking and his teeth bare in a rictus grin. ‘Old- old joke. Guess you had to be there.’

They stand under the cold white glare of the kitchen lights and in the silence that presses against his ears, Sam can hear the faint buzz of the strip lights under the cabinets, hear the low hum of traffic from the streets beyond his apartment, hear the frantic hammering of his own heartbeat. This is wrong, all of it. He feels like every nerve-ending is curling at the edges, his body aching after the comedown of the earlier adrenaline and the current bone-deep denial of what is happening. The hacking laughter has stopped and Bucky meets the other man’s eyes. ‘Buck,’ he says, soft, and the response is a sharp shake of the head and a flattening out of his features.

‘Don’t. Don’t call me that.’

Sam’s jaw clenches so hard that it hurts. ‘Thought we were past all that, man.’

‘I’m not him! I-’ His whole body shakes under the weight of whatever it is he’s feeling. Desperation hanging heavy on the air like thunder before a storm. ‘I’m not Bucky, I’m not Buck, I’m- I’m not him.’ 

‘Okay.’ Sam nods. His hands curl around the edges of the countertop, gripping hard. ‘What do you prefer? RoboBuck? BuckyBot. I like that one, I thinks that’s the winner.’

‘Barnes will do, I guess,’ he says, terse. ‘I don’t need a cutesy nickname.’

Sam feels the breath shake through his chest. He peels his fingers from the countertop one at a time, feels the tension down to the bones. ‘Okay. Fine. Barnes it is.’ Better than Soldier or Asset, at least. Sam remembers the files, remembers Steve’s face gaunt and hollowed out, eyes red and puffy after he’d read them. Remembers the spear of sickening anger and grief he’d felt on behalf of the stranger he was chasing who had endured all of that and so much more that he didn’t and still doesn’t know. 

Knows the fury he still feels, fresh and raw every time, when Bucky makes some offhand comment that speaks of unimaginable suffering, or when some kingpin they come up against sees only the chance of getting their hands on the Winter Soldier and Sam knows, without doubt, that he’d kill every last one of them himself and enjoy it if meant keeping Bucky safe.

‘I can’t stay here,’ Barnes says and pushes himself away from where he’s been leaning and Sam feels the world tilt a fraction again, vertiginous like he’s seasick.

‘What?’

Head held high and spine straight, that still too closed-off expression that Sam really hates. ‘I should go. It’s not safe.’

Sam folds his arms across his chest, frowns. ‘What isn’t? I got pretty good security. You know that. You- Bucky nagged me into setting it up.’

‘I mean I’m not safe. I might hurt you.’

The roil in the pit of Sam’s stomach snaps into something else, something sharp and white hot and his eyes glitter with it. ‘Bullshit. You fixed my wings. You had my back today. If you were going to hurt me you’d probably have done it by now.’

Jaw stuck out at an angle. Head tilted back. The same look he’s seen a thousand times that tells him Bucky isn’t listening to a Goddamn word he’s saying. 

‘Where the hell would you go at this time of night, anyhow?’

‘Safehouse. Plenty of old bases still in DC.’

Which- what? Sam shakes that off. ‘Going on the lam right now ain’t gonna solve anything. Bucky-’ Blue eyes blaze at him and the furious heat in them feels grounding somehow, a relief against the fear of empty coldness. ‘Barnes. You’re not gonna hurt me.’

‘You don’t know that. You need to find the kill switch.’

‘I- what?’ Sam stares at him, appalled. ‘I am not finding a fucking kill switch! Look, we will figure this out but I need you here to help me do it.’

‘I can’t tell you anything. I told you that.’

‘Okay, fine, but we can still work stuff out. Work out a timeline of when this happened.’ Sam chews on the inside of his cheek. ‘Look, we can go down to Delacroix-’

‘No!’

‘Why not?’

A look, almost pitying, as though Sam has lost his mind. ‘Where Sarah and the boys are? I could hur-’

Sam’s arms throw wide. ‘Oh my God!’ He glares at the man opposite. ‘How is robot you just as stubborn as regular you?’

Barnes sighs tiredly, the lines of his face deep and haggard. ‘I dunno, Sam, maybe I’m just programmed that way.’

‘That-’ He feels his chest contract. The buzzing of the strip-lights swells to a roaring in his ears, tingling spreading down his arms into his hands. Numb. He flexes them, fingers opening and closing. ‘Guess all those robot jokes were never actually funny.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake! Sam. I never- I mean, he never- Fuck!’ Frustration chases across his face and his head falls back with a dull thud against the cabinet behind him.

Sam has his hands balled at his sides. ‘Maybe for both our sakes you should just say “I”. I mean, it will make conversation a bit easier if nothing else.’

Head still tilted back, Barnes opens his eyes and stares up at the ceiling. ‘I never minded the robot jokes. You’re a good person, Sam, you’re too good to be deliberately unkind. Giving me shit like that, it- It helped make m-me… It helped me feel like a real person.’ His throat bobs. He looks at Sam and one corner of his mouth turns in a pained twist. ‘How’s that for irony? Besides,’ he adds after a moment, ‘Bucky Barnes is technically a cyborg, so the jokes aren’t entirely inaccurate.’

Which does not make Sam feel any better. ‘Still pretty bad taste,’ he mutters, guilt adding itself to the tangled knot of feelings lying heavy at the back of his throat.

‘You get a pass on it, trust me.’

Sam watches him for a moment, the lines and angles of the face he knows so well. ‘I do. Trust you.’ The divot deepens between Barnes’ brows; Sam raises a hand. ‘Don’t start with all that shit about how I shouldn’t, okay? Just- just put a pin in it for now.’ He tilts his head, eyebrows raising. ‘Yes?’

Barnes huffs out a breath. ‘Fine.’

Sam scrubs at his face, emerges with a new idea. ‘What about the Wakandans?’

‘What about them?’ An edge to the words.

‘Will you relax?’ Sam complains. ‘I mean the Outreach Centre; I’m pretty sure they could, I dunno, run some tests, get more information. It would be safe,’ he adds, not clarifying for whom. 

Barnes chews the inside of his lower lip, eyes intent on Sam’s face and then he nods minutely. ‘Yeah. Yeah, okay. I, uh- I’ll send ‘em a message.’ He pulls out his phone, screen lighting up bright when he starts tapping it, casting his face into harsh lines and shadows.

The ceramic knife still lies on the counter and Sam replaces it in the block, his stomach contracting again as the image of the blade slicing across Buc- Barnes’ flesh plays across his mind. Tries to remember the last time he had seen Bucky bleed and that’s a hundred scrapes and gouges from every fight, bloodied knuckles, a broken nose and then the bad ones, the stabbings, the bullet wounds, that time a piece of rebar had gone straight through Bucky's thigh.

Sofia, just over two months ago maybe or possibly closer to three, when they’d been tracking some Maggia-affiliated mercenaries and Bucky had ended up using his own body as a human fucking shield, putting himself between a grenade and a group of civilians. Sam’s hands wet and slippery trying to staunch the bleeding. Bucky still telling him get the hell out of here, asshole, I’ll be fine even while his face was slowly turning grey.

That had been a bad one. Sam shakes himself, pinches the bridge of his nose. Something more recent, he’s sure of it. Less life-threatening. He concentrates on chasing down the fuzzy edges of something, his mind starting to feel too sluggish and his body too heavy. They had been laughing-

Beer bottles sweating in the late-afternoon heat. Sam sitting on the steps running down to the street while Bucky tinkered with his motorbike, too busy shooting the shit with Sam to be fully paying attention to what he was doing, catching his finger on something and the clean bright red oozing from the pad of his thumb. White Wolf taken out by his own bike. They had traded friendly insults and the cut had healed over by the time they had finished the beers.

Less than two weeks ago. Bucky had been getting the bike ready because he was headed back to Brooklyn the next day, right after they had run those dumb simulations for Rhodey-

A row of eyeballs, one set that very particular shade of blue-grey.

‘They’ll be ready for us tomorrow.’

Sam starts. Without the light from the phone the kitchen suddenly seems too dark, corners swaddled in shadow, Barnes’ eyes deep and hollowed-out. ‘What did you do last week?’

Barnes lets out a sigh. ‘What?’

‘It’s not a trick question, man. Last week: what did you do? I’m just trying to figure out when…’ Sam waves a hand in the other man’s general direction. ‘And where.’

Barnes runs his left hand across his face, the phone still clasped in his right. He peers at Sam and frowns. ‘You should get some sleep. It’s been a long day.’

‘We need to-’

‘Sam.’ His lips thin and then flatten out. ‘Nothing’s gonna change in the next few hours. And I- I need to get to grips with this. I can’t keep talking about it, not right now. Please.’

The line of his shoulders is still held high but Sam can see it now, the exhaustion in his face and in the weight of his limbs. Under the glitter of the kitchen lights his eyes look wet. Sam nods. ‘Sure. Sure, of course. Tomorrow’s probably gonna be a lot - we should both rest up. Just…’ Sam sucks on a tooth. ‘Just promise me you’re not gonna go sneaking off as soon as I turn my back. No disappearing acts. And no stabbing yourself or trying to re-wire your brain or some dumbass shit like that.’

Barnes’ features harden. Sam narrows his eyes.

‘Oh my God, how much of that were you already planning on?’

‘None.’ It comes out fast.

‘Jesus.’ Sam presses his fingers into his temples, feels the throb behind his eyes. He straightens again. ‘If it’s any consolation, you can’t lie for shit, either.’

A smile ghosts across Barnes’ face. ‘I’ll take it, I guess.’

‘Look, just- Just promise me you’ll still be here and in one piece in the morning.’

Barnes stares at an unfixed point in the middle of Sam’s living room and his shoulders slump a fraction. ‘Fine.’

Sam puts his eyebrows up. ‘You promise?’

‘Jeez, yes, I promise! What do you want me to do, pinky-swear?’

‘Wouldn’t hurt,’ Sam mutters.

A breath of laughter; he shakes his head. ‘Go to bed, Sam.’ 

In his own bedroom, with its familiar sights and scents and textures, Sam sits on the edge of his bed, stares down at his bare feet scrunching against the rug and concentrates on breathing, his heart rate still running too fast. It roars in his ears. But he listens out for the sounds layering over that, for the faint movements from the room across the hallway, tensed and waiting for the sound of the front door opening and slamming again.

It doesn’t come.

Sam buries his head in his hands and allows himself the luxury of everything shaking, the pressure in his throat and behind his eyes easing. His face is wet. When his phone rings he jumps, sits frozen for a few long moments and then paws at the hoodie lying across the foot of the bed and pulls out the phone. Unknown number. He answers it cautiously.

‘Is he dying?’ Loud and imperious but with an anxious edge to her lightly-accented words. Sam actually bites back a smile, dashes a hand across his eyes.

‘Hi, Shuri. Why are you asking that?’

A sharp tutting sound. ‘I know how stubborn that man is,’ she says. ‘If he was cut in half he would probably try to argue it is just a scratch.’ Sam can’t help but smile at that because, yeah, Bucky has been not-quite-but-almost split in two and has told Sam he’ll just walk it off. ‘Do you know how many times he has called me about you and your suit?’

‘Uh-’

‘I have lost count,’ Shuri continues, not really needing a partner in this conversation. There’s a faint echo to her words, as though she is in a cavernous space. Not her lab, Sam thinks. The sound there is always muted, the vibranium in the rock absorbing and softening all sounds. ‘It’s always aerodynamics-this and diagnostics-that and can’t I make the wing-pack lighter because according to him you are going to develop a curvature of the spine. As though I had not taken into account your weight and build and musculature when I made it!’

The pressure in Sam’s throat increases again. He stares at the collection of photos on the shelf opposite the bed. Him with Nat and Steve. Sarah and the boys. Him and Sarah and Drew when Sarah was expecting Cass. Bucky with Cass and AJ climbing up onto his shoulders. Him and Bucky in Wakanda, arms around each other’s shoulders. He hadn’t known about Bucky and Shuri and the suit, not any of it, but he should have, he thinks. Shuri regularly updates the suit and its functions and more often than not it’s been - conveniently, coincidentally - an improvement that would have made a previous mission run a little smoother and Sam feels like a fucking idiot because that is straight up Grade-A James Buchanan Barnes. All up in his face about not eating enough or not sleeping enough but the real care, the stuff that will be the difference between life and death, that he does behind Sam’s back. And Sam wants to storm next door and wake him up and yell at him about it and then hug him about it except… Except. And Sam sort of wants to cry about it.

‘If our White Wolf is getting in touch about his own wellbeing, it must be serious,’ Shuri concludes. ‘So. Is he dying?’

He wants to tell her no, of course not but the thing is, he can’t because he doesn’t actually know. Somewhere, somehow Bucky has been taken out of commission and no-one knew. Sam didn’t know. He can’t tell Shuri, not like this. ‘There was a head injury,’ Sam says slowly, tries to keep his voice neutral and steady. ‘It isn’t serious but… Just want to make sure there are no complications. Nothing that will affect the wiring to his arm, or anything.’

It isn’t technically a lie, Sam tells himself.

There is a long silence. ‘All right,’ she says. And hangs up.

Sam falls back across the bed, stares up at the ceiling. He had never actually made the tea, he thinks, the kettle sitting cold on the stove that he had forgotten to light. He’d even bought some of that fancy chamomile and rose stuff that Bucky had been talking about and shows just how much Bucky knows, ‘cos that shit is delicious. In a minute he’ll get up, he thinks, get out of the day’s dusty clothes, maybe make some of that tea and figure out where the hell they go from here. Without meaning to, Sam falls asleep. 

He startles awake at the ass-crack of dawn, with the fuzzy-headed, parched-throat feeling like he’s got a hangover. Bile lying on the back of his throat, iron in his mouth. His muscles feel sore, a deep weary ache. The bedside lamp is still on, the light feeling too-bright against the dim morning pushing its way into the room around the blinds on the window. Sam rolls over, flicks off the switch, realises he’s rolled onto his phone. Huh. He usually plugs it in to charge. Just how many beers had he drunk last night?

Sam fumbles about until he locates the cord for the charger, plugs it in and the screen immediately lights up. 

Shuri. Shuri had called, he remembers. And then he remembers why. And his stomach flips again and he experiences a momentary desperate hope that somehow in the past few hours of oblivious sleep the world has righted itself and Bucky really is just Bucky, all the flesh-and-blood-and-vibranium of him, ready to laugh his ass off over Sam’s sideways slip into virtual insanity.

Sam eases himself up, pads across to the door and opens it, listening. Silence hangs over the apartment, everything touched with shades of blue-grey. For a moment he hovers outside of the door to his spare room, all but pressing his ears against it and considers opening it just a crack, just to make sure. But Barnes had promised him he wouldn’t run. Sam had told Barnes he trusted him. He has to hold onto both of those things.

Sam continues down the hall, into the living room and the TV is flickering in the corner and-

‘Fuck!’ Sam slams back against the wall, his heart pounding. The silent figure sitting upright on his couch stares back at him. ‘Goddammit, Bucky, you nearly gave me a heart-attack.’

‘Barnes,’ he says. He doesn’t move. ‘Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.’

Sam’s heart descends from its new home in his throat to somewhere approximately more familiar. ‘Please don’t tell me you’ve been here all night.’

It’s one of those European soccer games that Bucky likes so much and Sam doesn’t really understand unfolding silently on the screen, the players in either deep blue or red-and-white against a backdrop of vivid green.

‘Couldn’t sleep,’ Barnes says and his head tilts back, looking at Sam down his eyes. ‘Why are you up so early?’

‘Couldn’t sleep,’ Sam says and peels himself away from the wall. Head still muzzy, he feels sweaty and dirty. And he feels an intent pair of eyes on him and raises his own to meet them. ‘What?’

Barnes flicks a button on the remote and the screen cuts to black. ‘You should shower, get something to eat.’

Sam sticks out his chin. ‘You tryin’ to tell me something here?’

An almost-smile tugs at the corners of Barnes’ mouth, fondness that he can’t stop shadowing in his eyes. ‘Yeah, I’m saying that you’re still wearing yesterday’s clothes and you didn’t eat last night.’

‘Oh, and you have showered and eaten, I suppose,’ Sam says, belligerent and with a twinge of annoyance because how the hell is newly discovered His Grumpiness BuckyBot Barnes the more well-adjusted of the two of them?

‘Showered. Not eaten,’ Barnes confirms and yes, all right, so his hair is actually visibly damp, clear signs of fingers having been raked through to push it away from his face. ‘I’ll get breakfast started. You look like hell.’

Which, rude, but yeah. Okay. Sam makes a point of glaring at Barnes, which is completely lost as the glare lands only between the man’s shoulder blades. Sam heads to the shower and stands under it for a good ten minutes with the pressure set to the highest and the water so hot against his skin it almost feels cold. When he pulls on a pair of clean sweats and his old LSU T-shirt he feels sort of hollow and wrung-out, all of his reactions a few seconds behind where they should be, but he feels more in his life than out of it. And when he goes back out into the living room he’s met with the aroma of fresh coffee and frying bacon.

It’s a familiar sight, Bucky in the kitchen making free with pots and pans and whatever he’s found in Sam’s fridge. So he’s no chef, but Bucky’s pretty good at basic, homely breakfast staples and the uncomplicated warmth of it all is something Sam feels down to the bone, even more than his red-hot shower. Sam installs himself in a corner of the kitchen, folds his arms across his chest. Barnes glances at him sideways without turning his head, then pushes a mug along the counter towards him. Sam gets his hands around it, lets the heat seep into his palms and fingers before he takes a sip. Just the right amount of sugar, not too much milk. Just the way he likes it. Sam closes his eyes against the bittersweetness of it and then looks again at the tall upright figure calmly stirring mushrooms around Sam’s prized Le Creuset skillet.

‘Makin’ free with my milk again, huh?’ Sam rumbles. The reply is a tilt of the head and a broad grin, bright as the early-morning sunshine. Just before it hits the clear blue eyes it falters, replaced by a despairing sort of resignation. 

And Sam feels his heart clench against the unbidden memories. He’s seen that same look before, that same failing smile when they had made one of their many flying visits to Wakanda and Bucky had struggled to summon up some vestiges of the shining golden boy of Steve’s remembrances and the strain of it had been too much. When Steve had been torn between the joy of seeing the gentleness and kindness still intact in his friend and the wrenching agony of all that they had lost.

Maybe then there had been a bit of Sam that had thought that Bucky could have tried a bit harder for Steve’s sake if not his own; maybe now there’s much more of him that thinks that Steve could have unbent enough to cut all of them a bit of slack, himself included.

Sam puts the mug down on the counter and takes one step closer to Barnes, just enough that he’s within touching distance but not so much that he’s crowding him.

‘Hey,’ he says, ‘you okay?’

The spatula stirring the mushrooms through their oil and butter stills for a moment and then moves on. ‘It’s just- There’s always something. You know?’

Sam nods. ‘I know.’ His voice is soft. ‘Hey.’ He waits and then puts a hand on Barnes’ shoulder. Everything still and tensed under his hand. He waits again until Barnes turns his head and looks at him, wary and expectant. ‘I know you’re scared. I’m scared, too. But we’ll figure this out. Just like we always do. It’ll be okay, man.’

Blue eyes hold his for a long moment and then Barnes turns the heat off under the pan, balances the spatula carefully across the rim and turns fully to Sam. ‘We don’t always do anything, Sam. I am not Bucky Barnes-’

Sam’s face spasms with exasperation. ‘I know that!’

‘Do you?’ His eyebrows rise at a sharp angle, head tilting a fraction. ‘’Cos it doesn’t sound like you do.’

‘Oh? And what does it sound like?’ Sam fold his arms again, chin jutting out.

‘It sounds like you’re still hoping that this is just some dumb prank or something that can be fixed with one of Shuri’s algorithms. You sound like-’ His chest rattles, lips slightly parted.

‘Like what?’ Sam’s words prod viciously.

‘You sound like Steve.’

Sam stares at him for a moment. Steve and all of his blinding earnestness and Sam is suddenly filled, again, with the sickening twist of missing Steve and still being mad at Steve. He clears his throat and his words still come out rough: ‘That supposed to be some kinda fucking insult?’

One corner of Barnes’ mouth tilts upwards. He pulls plates already laden with bacon, tomatoes, hash browns and adds the mushrooms. ‘He always saw the good in people.’

Sam reclaims his mug, takes some of his coffee. ‘Thought you always said he was full of piss and vinegar, ready to punch anything that moved.’

Affection creases Barnes’ face, that same lightness that always makes him look impossibly young. ‘He was. But he was an idealist. I- Bucky was the pragmatist.’

‘We agreed you were just saying “I”,’ Sam grumbles.

Barnes grimaces. ‘Doesn’t always work.’ He turns the heat back on under the pan. ‘How do you want your eggs?’

It takes a moment for Sam to catch up with the gear-change. ‘Sunny side up.’

‘Don’t know why I bothered asking,’ Barnes murmurs.

Breakfast is hearty and it sits heavily on Sam’s stomach, something that he’s taken on as a necessity rather than something pleasurable, which is a pity because it’s a good breakfast and under any other circumstances Sam would take the time to really enjoy it. Instead they both work on their plates in relative silence and it’s almost a relief when Barnes stands to collect the dirty crockery and starts stacking everything in the dishwasher.

Sam stares at the lines of his back - straight spine, square shoulders - until his phone rings, a shriek cutting through the heaviness on the air. A video call. Sam props the phone against the pepper grinder and Bruce Banner’s handsomely rumpled face blinks at him blearily, looking like he’s slept in his lab and only just rolled off one of the benches.

‘Hey, Sam.’

He nods. ‘Hey. You’re not green.’

A fleeting smile. ‘No, yeah… Me, uh, me and the other guy are taking a little break for a bit.’ His eyes move past Sam. ‘Hi, Bucky.’

Sam quirks a look over his shoulder. Barnes nods solemnly in response, continues with whatever it is he’s doing with the usual noiseless tread that Sam still hasn’t quite got used to which means that he’s perpetually doing melodramatic jump-scares on finding Bucky doing really sinister things like sitting in a chair Sam hadn’t noticed him in or suddenly appearing in the kitchen to get a beer.

‘Sam?’

He starts, turns his attention back to Bruce.

‘Hey, yeah, sorry. I- I’m here. What can I do for you?’

Bruce peers at him for a moment, brow furrowing and when he speaks it’s slow and slightly questioning. ‘Uh… Rhodey sent me a sample of some gas canisters you guys picked up - I’m calling in with the results.’

It takes a few moments and then Sam picks up the threads, remembers the office building with the hostages and the guys with the canisters and it feels like years ago but it was only yesterday. 

‘That was, uh, that was fast,’ Sam says.

‘Yeah, well, it wasn’t so tough to figure once I got them open,’ Bruce tells him. ‘They were filled with helium.’

Sam blinks. ‘Helium. What, you mean, like, what goes in balloons?’

Bruce nods. Tired lines carved into his face, his hair an unruly mass of silvered curls. ‘Uh-huh. If they’d got them open all that would have happened is everyone would have sounded like Mickey Mouse for a while.’

Sam slumps back in his chair, feels the frown building across his face. ‘Then what the hell was the point of all that?’

Bruce’s mouth flattens slightly. ‘Kinda glad to say that’s your wheelhouse, not mine. I just analyse stuff.’

‘When you’re not saving the world.’ 

Dark eyes duck down, long eyelashes blinking hard. ‘Don’t think I ever did that, Sam.’

No. He’d just brought them back. Sam, Bucky, T’Challa and all the millions of the decimated, done it in a way to cause minimal damage when people had been reconstituted out of ash and dust after five years, had tried so hard to get Nat back, Natasha whom he had loved so well, and Sam shies away from the thought of her, from the missing her, the mourning her. Bruce looks back up at the screen, the ever-present sadness behind his eyes suddenly to the fore, like he knows what Sam’s thinking.

‘You okay, Bruce? Down in…’ Sam peers at the screen. ‘Where are you?’ Wide blue skies and roiling verdant green visible behind him.

‘Mexico.’ Sadness tugs at the corners of Bruce’s mouth. ‘Place Tony helped me set up.’

The ghosts that are always with them, Sam thinks. Behind him he hears the dishwasher being closed, his own personal ghost both present and absent. ‘Looks nice,’ Sam says.

‘Yeah. You guys should come down sometime. Gotta nice beach here and everything.’

Sam nods. ‘Yeah, yeah, no, that’d be great. But you- You’re okay? You’re good?’ He hasn’t checked in with Bruce for a while, Sam realises. Not since, shit, not since the lake when Steve had gone then come back then fucked off again. When he and Bucky had stood side-by-side, not knowing how much they needed each other and with no clue to how to reach one another even if they had.

Bruce blinks slowly, makes a little humming noise. ‘I’m fine. Are you okay?’

I feel like having a screaming nervous breakdown, he wants to say, and my best friend has been replaced by a robot who is 100% a Paranoid Android version of Bucky and I can’t bear to think about where Bucky is and who has him and what they’re doing to him-

But he says: ‘Good. Yeah, we’re all good.’

Bruce’s face comes a little closer to the screen, like he’s studying Sam through it and he nods a little, wry acceptance etching into the lines around his eyes and mouth. ‘Uh-huh.’ He moves back again. ‘So, sorry I can’t help you out with the gas situation. It’s not like helium’s all that hard to come by.’

‘Don’t worry about it. Good to know these guys aren’t running around with a nerve agent or something, I guess.’

‘Yet.’ It’s a low rumble and Sam glances over to where Barnes stands, arms folded across his chest. Off Sam’s reproachful look his shoulders shrug very slightly. ‘What? That coulda been a dry run and the next time they’ll have the real deal.’

‘Well, that’s depressing,’ Bruce says. ‘But also possible.’

Sam scrubs at his face. That’s going to have to be a later problem, he decides. ‘Hey, uh, Bruce, while you’re here… How much do you know about robotics?’

The wry smile has more genuine, long-suffering humour in it. ‘You accidentally help co-create a genocidal murderbot that one time and no-one lets you live it down.’

Sam huffs out a laugh and somewhere in Bruce’s words he can hear Tony’s voice which adds it own bittersweet regret. ‘I guess. But, uh, I meant like… Realistic robots. Androids, or whatever, y’know?’

Bruce’s brow furrows, his lips pushing out. ‘You mean like LMDs?’

‘What..?’

‘Life Model Decoys,’ Bruce continues. ‘They were meant to be, um, identical to living subjects, from what I remember. It was, ah, it was old SHIELD tech. I was never involved but Tony tinkered around with what intel and schematics there were still about at some point until Rhodes shut him down, I think.’

‘Rhodes.’ A sharp twist behind his ribs. It’s an ugly thought, one he doesn’t want to have. But he has it and he hates himself for it.

‘Yeah. One of those old projects that never got off the ground. Just as well, probably, there are so many ethical implications. And given the precedence, Vision turning out to have been one of the good guys was probably something of a fluke.’ Bruce is looking at him curiously. ‘Why?’

‘Oh, uh… Nothing.’ Sam plasters on a smile that hurts at the corners. ‘Just something that came up in passing.’

After Bruce rings off the silence that pours in is heavy, enough that Sam can hear the buzz of morning traffic outside and a radio playing somewhere, muzzy and indistinct. Sam stands, turns and faces Barnes who is still standing sentinel, arms folded tight and his face carved into something harsh and gaunt.

‘SHIELD tech,’ Barnes says, voice weighed down.

‘Yeah.’

‘SHIELD that was also HYDRA.’

Sam sighs. ‘Yeah.’

‘Jesus…’ He laughs, bitter, shaking his head. ‘Really is the gift that just keeps on fucking giving, isn’t it? Looks like HYDRA finally got what they wanted, a whole robotic me to get programmed however they want, they don’t even have to keep brainwashing me to do it.’ His eyes are too, too bright, hard slivers of silver around wide pupils. High points of colour in his cheeks. It’s almost visible, the swirl of pain and anger and bitterness around him, pulling him in and Sam reaches for him despairingly because Bucky had fought so hard against all of that, had pulled himself out of that hellish spiral, had held on when Sam had finally really seen him, reached out for him, when he had let Sam help him and had ended up helping Sam just as much.

‘We don’t know it’s HYDRA,’ Sam says, and tries to keep his voice steady, calming. Barnes’ eyes blaze at him, furious.

‘Don’t. Don’t do that.’

Sam’s eyebrows raise. ‘Do what?’

‘Give me your I’m explaining this to the idiots Captain America voice.’

‘I’m not.’

‘Yes, you are! I’m not an idiot, Sam, and neither are you.’ His arms throw wide. ‘I’m a fucking robot! Who would do this? The good guys? You think Rhodes set this up? Or, what, that Bucky went along with this to, I dunno, test something out without telling anyone? Without telling you? Good people don’t do this.’ He gestures at himself, contempt running through the lines of his arm and hand. ‘I have all of his thoughts and memories, all of them, and I know what I am. I know it’s all fake, I’m fake, it- It’s cruel!’

Sam takes a step forward, hands coming up from his sides; Barnes takes one back, shutting him out, all his body-language closed off and hurting and Sam stands and seethes with the wretched uselessness of it all. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, flinches with the inadequateness of it, at how hollow his own words sound in the face of the other man's agonising despair.

Shoulders rise and fall and some of the tension bleeds out of Barnes. He looks raw and scraped-out, skin too tight across his cheekbones and the fine cut of his jaw. ‘You don’t have to be sorry,’ he says. ‘None of this is on you.’ He unfolds himself by inches until his hands hang by his sides. The fingers of his left hand curl and uncurl, glinting sharply in the morning light. ‘Look, I know you want to pin all this down, work out the timeline and everything, and yeah, we have to, but- Just… After the Outreach Centre, okay? Let’s just hear what the Wakandans can figure out. All right?’

It isn’t an unreasonable request but Sam still feels a sputtering fizz of irritation and impatience that he tries to stamp down. ‘Yeah, all right.’ 

‘And after that, you need to talk to Rhodes.’

Sam’s head rears back and that ugly thought burrows its way through his mind again, fear cooling the incipient anger. ‘You think he’s involved?’

Numerous thoughts flit across Barnes’ face, as open and expressive and guileless as Bucky’s ever was and Sam gets stuck in that groove, again, of contrasting the reality of Bucky Barnes and the grim blankness of the Winter Soldier and what was done to him, relentlessly, to turn the one into the other. ‘No, of course not. But if Tony Stark was working on these LMD things, there might be files that didn’t get released after Insight. They might be useful. And it’ll be easier going through Rhodes than around him.’

Sam watches him for a moment and hears all the things that are left unsaid. If Rhodes thinks that Barnes is a credible threat, he’ll take him in. And Barnes will let him. And before any of it has happened, Sam sort of hates both of them for it. His head moves in a jerky nod and he turns; Barnes’ voice catches him gently between the shoulder blades.

‘Sam. I know this is hard on you, too. I know that. I’m not trying to make it any worse. I’m really not.’ Blue eyes wide with concern but still more shuttered than Sam’s seen in months and he feels another spear of anger to add to the burning hot core of it sitting against the back of his skull at whoever has taken this from them.

‘I know, man.’

Barnes nods, pushes himself away from the counter. ‘There’s a train to New York in an hour. We better get moving.’

Chapter Text

The ride up to New York is largely silent. The landscape passes in a high-speed blur and Barnes spends most of the journey staring out of the window. Bucky Barnes freaks out so rarely that Sam hadn’t even realised that it was happening the first couple of times. He isn’t loud about it the way some people are, the way Sam can be when he really gets into it; Bucky goes terrifyingly still and silent, eyes craters in his face, mute while he wrestles with whatever demon it is. He remembers Steve telling him that Bucky had barely spoken during that long march back from Krausberg, embers of shame behind Steve’s eyes flickering back to life: that Steve hadn’t pushed more, questioned more, had just waited for Bucky to confide in him and then let it go when he hadn’t. Maybe Steve had been waiting for one of Bucky’s late-night rambling monologues that had never come.

Barnes is silent now and still, moving only when his phone buzzes discreetly. There’s a wistful tenderness in his face and his lips twitch faintly when he stares at the screen.

Sam jerks his chin. ‘Everything okay?’

Barnes’ eyes flick up to him. ‘Yeah, I- Yeah, it’s just something AJ sent.’ He slides the phone across the sleek white table between them; Sam picks it up and  reads it and then smiles. Yet another Star Wars meme that AJ likes to bombard both of them with but Bucky in particular.

Barnes reclaims his phone, taps out a message.

‘What are you telling him?’

‘That I miss him, too.’

There’s still tightness around Barnes’ mouth. He puts the phone away, stares out of the window.

They pull into Penn Station barely an hour and a half after leaving DC, pushing through the crowds to the subway that takes them up to Harlem. The Wakandan Outreach Centre lies in a quiet side street off Malcolm X Boulevard, the row of unassuming redbrick buildings bright with graffiti depicting the history of the borough, the intricate graphics interspersed with lines written in the still-unfamiliar-to-Sam alphabet of Wakanda.

A knot of early teens mill about on the sidewalk, showing off their skateboard moves, the wheels clattering against the concrete and brickwork. Sharp dark eyes flicking up to the two strangers approaching, tracking their progress. The tallest of the group, headful of twists and a too-large Knicks shirt, stands, head high, and relaxes slightly when he recognises Barnes.

‘Yo, White Wolf.’ Nonchalant. 

Sam glances sideways and sees the smile tugging at Barnes’ lips and the way he’s keeping his face neutral and serious. ‘Fellas.’

The dark eyes move to Sam and he sees the moment of recognition, the sudden excitement pushed down under a veneer of unconcern. They whisper among themselves.

‘Hey, Cap!’

Sam turns, ready with a familiar grin plastered on and sees the phones in their hands. He lets them get the photos, hears the voices raised joyously as they compare the results, then follows Barnes up the flight of steps and through the set of heavy wooden doors.

Stepping into the Outreach Centre is like stepping into another world and maybe, Sam thinks, that is the point. The interiors of the row of buildings have been gutted, all knocked through to create one long sinuous space that curves around a courtyard bright with light and plants and bio-domes filled with flora that Sam is certain have never been seen on this continent. The hallways gleam with rock polished like marble and illumined with holographic displays and digital mapping from projectors mounted discreetly in the floor and ceiling. Barnes moves through the space with barely a glance, heading unerringly towards the medical suites and his step only faltering when another figure swoops towards them. 

‘Ingcuka Emhlophe!’

Armour gold and a rich blue instead of the usual red, high sharp cheekbones, big dark eyes warm and humorous under a sweep of long lashes and a wide smile pulling at her generous mouth. 

What is it with Wakandan women, Sam thinks distantly, that they all look like supermodels?

She pulls up scant feet from them, her arms slamming across her body in the usual salute that Barnes returns after a surprised beat and then he stands under her scrutiny.

‘Aneka…’

Her eyes narrow. And then she takes two long strides forward and wraps her arms around Barnes, enfolding him, lets out a heavy sigh. His own arms raise automatically, too surprised by her presence not to return her embrace, hands hovering in the air before settling lightly on the long lean line of her back.

‘What’s this for?’

Aneka pulls back and inspects him again with an air of displeasure. ‘You look as though you are in need of a hug.’ A husky voice, a pleasant contralto. There is less humour in her face now. She turns her large expressive eyes onto Sam and he feels like he’s been swiftly and expertly turned inside out under that gaze that’s as sharp and precise and merciless as a surgeon’s scalpel. ‘And you… You look as though you would be proficient at hugging, Captain Wilson,’ she says. ‘Am I wrong in my assessment or have you simply been negligent in this matter?’

Sam gawks at her. ‘I- I’m a hugger - I give damn good hugs!’ He feels far more indignant about this than is actually warranted, Sam thinks, but it feels almost a relief, to be incensed about something so mundane. Aneka’s eyes are still on him and she knows, he’s sure; not the detail, not the actuality of it, but she can see Sam’s weird relief at the mundanity of this exchange, at how grounded it’s made him, and she knows that what has brought them here is an enormity beyond all of that.

‘Why are you here?’ Barnes asks it quietly. 

Her chin tilts up in response. ‘The princess was worried. Even after Captain Wilson’s assurances-’

Blue-grey eyes the colour of a summer storm blaze at him. ‘What?’

Aneka stamps one heavily-booted foot, like she’s on the parade ground drilling recruits who don’t quite make the grade. ‘Princess Shuri awaits you in her lab. This way.’ She pivots and marches herself along the corridor, taking it for granted that they will follow her. 

They do. But Barnes maintains a furious glare at Sam as they walk. ‘You talked to Shuri?’ Teeth gritted and the tendons in his neck standing out.

‘She called last night,’ Sam says, calm or at least with the appearance of it. ‘She just wanted to make sure you weren’t dying.’

‘And you didn’t tell me?’

Which, okay, fair. ‘I didn’t think she’d come over here.’

‘That’s ‘cos you don’t know her,’ Barnes hisses. ‘I do. I could’ve- I could’ve stopped her!’

Aneka whirls, stopping so suddenly that they nearly crash into her. Her eyes gleam with sardonic amusement. ‘Clearly, you do not know her as well as you think, White Wolf.’ And she turns again, leading them through a series of security doors that Sam is pretty sure have just photocopied them or something, seeing as they’re all glass and white interfaces and glowing blue lights, and then they’re in a vast chamber clad in natural stone with bright murals hanging on the walls, assorted plants and one entire wall that’s a Goddamn water feature and in the centre of it two figures, one tall and fierce and proud in her armour, her spear firm in her hand; the other tiny, coltish limbs and huge eyes, her newly-shorn hair making her look somehow even younger. 

Those huge eyes rake over Barnes, absorbing every detail of him and her hands are tight around the tablet she holds. Beside her Ayo is very still, only the faint rise and fall of her chest and the regular sweep of her long lashes over her eyes proof that she isn’t a statue.

‘So,’ Shuri says, ‘you are not dead yet.’

Sunlight from the vast windows pours in, liquid and golden, reflecting and refracting in the tiny ice crystals dusting the inside of the white cryo-tube. Shuri peers through the glass at the still, sombre face of the man sleeping inside. Dark-haired and handsome, probably, for a White boy. 

‘So this is the man who did not kill Baba but whose life you tried to ruin anyway.’

From across the lab T’Challa looks up from the files and schematics rotating above the sand table and aims a wearied glare at her. ‘I know. I was badly mistaken. And he did run,’ he adds after a moment.

Shuri looks at the sleeping face again. ‘Probably because a strange man dressed like a big cat was chasing him. I would have run, Brother, and I know who you are.’

A wry smile tugs at his lips and he waves a hand, the holograms sinking back into the sands.

‘And you also thought it was a good idea to put him back into cryostasis?’ Her tones sharpens. Shuri had been away from the citadel, on retreat with their mother, when their strange guests had arrived. Captain Rogers with his face so stern and a deep sadness in his eyes and his friend, so cruelly used and abused for so long, who sleeps now in her lab, the glowing blue lines of his brainwaves rising and falling gently.

T’Challa walks towards her, a heavy sigh. ‘It was not my decision. It was Sergeant Barnes’ own choice. Captain Rogers tried to dissuade him, trust me, but he was determined.’ A complicated emotion twists across his face as he looks through the icy glass at Bucky Barnes’s still features, a mix of admiration and regret tinged with something that looks almost like fondness. ‘He has been made to hurt too many times.’

Well. Different ways you could take that, Shuri thinks. And probably all of them apply.

‘Until we can be sure of how we can help him; he does not trust even himself not to be a weapon.’

Her mind had started running through all of the possibilities as soon as she had heard the outline of the whole sorry tale, the need to be busy, to work on the problem already vibrating through her. Fizzing energy racing along her nerves, jangling in her hands and bouncing her up and down on her feet. The counterpoint to her brother’s habitual, magisterial calm and his stillness now quietens her.

‘Do you think he is a good man?’ Not that it really matters, Shuri tells herself, it doesn’t make a difference to what she needs to do. This is a problem to be solved. But. Still. 

T’Challa tilts his head back, considering. ‘Yes,’ he says eventually. ‘I do.’

Barnes’ eyes pass over the group, cool and assessing. ‘The gang’s all here, huh? I’m flattered.’ He stalks forward a few paces then stops, hands thrust negligently into his pockets and his jaw sets at an unpleasant angle, his eyes cutting towards Ayo. ‘You’re gonna wanna keep hold of the spear, General.’

The air fizzes. Sam feels it against his skin, sees the way that Ayo’s already upright spine snaps infinitesimally straighter, sees the way that Shuri’s breath catches. 

‘Barnes, what the fuck?’ He hisses it at the other man’s broad back and there’s no sign that Barnes has heard him; Sam edges closer, gets a look at Barnes’ face and doesn’t like what he sees in it.

‘You requested medical assistance,’ Shuri says. ‘That is an occurrence so rare we had to make sure it was actually you making it.’

Barnes’ head tilts, his lips pulling back in an ironic smile and Sam feels his stomach drop, opens his mouth but the words don’t come out fast enough. 

‘Funny you should say that,’ Barnes tells her and his voice is flat and with just enough of a loaded edge to it that Sam feels his scalp prickle. ‘Turns out I’m a robot made to look and walk and talk just like your buddy Bucky Barnes but I am not him. I’m just here to make sure I don’t go on a murder spree on someone else’s whim. Ideally you’ll find the off-switch for me and this whole thing can be over before lunch.’

If the air crackled before, it feels like all of the oxygen has been sucked out of it now. Sam grabs hold of his arm, pulls him around as much as he’s able and gets up in his face. ‘You can’t just spring this on ‘em!’

Barnes doesn’t bother to shake him off, just eyeballs him back with a controlled belligerence that Sam finds enraging. ‘No point sugar-coating it. It’s why we’re here, after all.’

In the mere seconds that have passed, Shuri has found her voice. ‘What nonsense is this?’ She turns accusing eyes on Sam. ‘What is this ridiculous man talking about now?’

For that moment, Sam really really wants to tell her a kind lie. He swallows. ‘It isn’t nonsense.’

‘You said it was a head injury,’ Shuri states heavily after an even heavier silence.

‘It was, that- That’s how we found out. It-’ Sam runs a hand over his head. ‘It was a hell of a night.’

The squeak of leather, chinking of metal, rustles of fabric. Five people watch each other. Shuri doesn’t move at all, barely even her lips, and her voice is quiet. ‘Griot?’

Another moment of silence.

‘I am sorry, Princess.’

The voice is everywhere and nowhere, pleasant and musical and filling the space. Sam gazes wildly around and then relaxes fractionally. What is it with tech geniuses and their AIs? he wonders.

‘There is no organic matter or biological vitals in my scan of Sergeant Barnes,’ Griot continues, with as much concern as though he were delivering the weather report. ‘It is as he and Captain Wilson have stated. The being before you is not White Wolf but a replica. Origin, unknown.’ 

In the space between heartbeats, Sam feels the sighing death of a weak hope that he hadn't known he’d had. Over now. The reality hitting hard once again and he looks at Barnes, somehow expecting an exchange of wry looks before remembering that it’s just him that feels this and that they’re both in their own separate hells.

‘So,’ Barnes continues, with that same maddening calm, ‘like I said: anything you can find about what I’ve been programmed to do would be real useful. And after that, shut me down.’

‘Hey!’ Sam squares up to him, feels his own roiling anger start to spike. ‘No-one is shutting you down.’

Blue eyes flat and colder than he’s seen them in a long time. ‘That’s not your decision to make, Sam.’ Barnes glances at Ayo again. ‘Told you you’d wanna keep hold of the spear.’

‘I do not use it lightly,’ she says, teeth clamped together, her lips drawn back.

‘No-one is using it at all,’ Shuri says, her voice thin and high and there’s an aching crack in it that’s ready to break.

Sam feels his own heart break for her, an additional weight on her narrow shoulders. T’Challa’s long illness and slow recovery still sitting heavily on her. She was made for joy, he thinks, all of her bouncing energy and pleasure in living and her own formidable intellect.

‘We will need to run scans. And we will see what we can do for you,’ she tells Barnes.

His lips push out. ‘I don’t need you to do anything for me.’

‘That is what friends do.’

‘Not your friend, Princess. Fake robot version. Remember?’

It’s the hectoring, insolent tone he uses on goons and two-bit thugs, the one that always drives them crazy, that ends with them taking wild swings that Bucky puts down with brutal efficiency - and Sam usually sort of enjoys the sport of it. In that context. In this context it’s unpleasant and unnecessary and damaging.

Shuri sucks in a breath, her dark eyes glittering dangerously. ‘Do not think you can annoy me into deleting you. I know how annoying you can be, you will have to try much harder than that.’ Her thin chest rises and falls. ‘I did not spend so much time saving one part of my family just to destroy another.’

Head bowed, hands busy with the holographic controls. There’s a tremor in her fingers.

The harsh line of Barnes’ shoulders bleeds out of him. ‘Shuri…’

When Sam looks at him he sees the worried wide blue eyes and sensitive, open face of his friend and feels the knot in his chest ease if only a little.

Shuri keeps her head bowed but the strain in her face still shows, nowhere to hide without her long braids falling across her features. Barnes crosses to her, stops barely a pace away.

‘uSisi Omncinci.’ His voice now is low, a soft caress and Shuri spins into his arms and he catches her. They hold onto one another, Shuri’s face creased with hurt and Barnes’ buried in the soft mass of her hair. He murmurs to her in Xhosa, words Sam can’t hear and wouldn’t understand even if he could. But Barnes’ eyes are wet and when Shuri raises her head she reaches up and her fingers wipe at the tears on his cheeks.

The coiling tension in the room relaxes its hold a little and Sam takes a moment to catch his breath. He looks across at Ayo and Aneka, both still rigid and unmoving. Ayo’s face is a blank mask but her eyes glitter wildly.

Shuri releases herself from Barnes’ embrace, takes a step back and inspects him, biting on the inside of her lip. ‘We should start with neurology mapping-’

Barnes holds up a hand. ‘Wait. Please, just…’ His shoulders rise and fall and he looks across at Ayo. ‘You made me a promise, remember?’

She nods.

‘You still gonna keep it?’

Her fingers flex minutely around the spear held tight in her grasp. ‘Ewe.’

‘Good. Because I need you to say the words.’

Sam feels his cheeks numb, his mouth opening and closing before he can get any words out. ‘Wait, what?’

‘The words, Sam, the trigger words,’ Barnes says, slow, exhaustion etched into every syllable.

‘And what promise?’ Sam demands, feeling two steps behind everyone else and not liking at all where they’re leading him. Ayo’s head has tilted back. Sam cuts his eyes at her. ‘What promise?’

Her lips twitch and then flatten. ‘That I will not let him hurt anyone.’

It’s Barnes she looks at and they hold one another's gaze for a moment, Barnes nodding slightly and a vague relief creeping around the edges of his eyes. Sam has seen the Dora fight, knows what they are capable of, knows what Ayo is capable of even against an enhanced person but this seems like a promise that isn’t just about incapacitating, even hypothetically, a hypothetical Winter Soldier. No, Sam thinks, fuck no-

He takes two large strides and grabs Barnes’ arm. ‘You don’t have to do this!’ It comes out as a hiss.

‘Yes, I do. I have to know, Sam.’

‘This is what you’ve been afraid of?’ His own voice sounds appalled at the idea and he sort of is, that Barnes has been holding this fear in all this time and he hadn’t told Sam and it hadn’t even occurred to Sam that he would think like that. Shit, is this what Bucky thinks? All of the time? Is he just walking around terrified the whole time that someone will just unmake him all over again and Sam hasn’t known?

‘Sam.’

He startles and realises that Barnes has been saying something to him and is now looking at him with wide concerned eyes. And then Barnes puts a hand on Sam’s shoulder and the pressure is warm and familiar and his smile is small and sad. ‘It’s okay,’ he says.

‘It is unlikely that any trigger words have been programmed in,’ Griot offers. ‘It is not the optimal process for a non-organic being.’

Barnes grimaces slightly. ‘But not impossible.’

‘No,’ Griot allows.

Barnes squeezes Sam’s shoulder and his hand drops. ‘Okay, then. You should step out, just in case,’ he tells Sam.

Sam’s chin sticks out, arms folding across his chest. ‘Are you fucking kidding me? Like hell I’m stepping out!’

A complicated mix of annoyance and affection works its way across Barnes’ face. He swings around to Shuri and her dark eyes blaze before he can open his mouth. 

‘Hayi! Do not say it.’

His hands ball at his sides, a deep breath rattling in and out of his chest. ‘Fine. But at least go stand next to Sam.’

‘Look, I’ll go stand next to her,’ Sam states, trying to sound conciliatory and moves himself in between them before the fear and anger he can see held tight in Shuri’s slight frame erupts out of her. He catches the flare of Barnes’ blue eyes and the look in them that says get her out of here, if…

It’s the if that Sam doesn’t want to think about, not the if of right now and definitely not the if that somewhere, wherever he is, Bucky is strapped down to a table or into a chair and it’s electricity and trigger words and he’s fighting it all over again just like in that horrifying snippet of grainy video in one of the old HYDRA files that Sam had seen when Bucky Barnes was still just a ghost  to Sam but Bucky’s whole body had been arching and thrashing against restraints and he’d been screaming and screaming and screaming-

Sam stands beside Shuri and jumps slightly when he feels something brush against the back of his hand. Her hand, he realises. Her fingers lace through his. Her eyes are hauntingly wide and dark and miserable.

On the other side of the room, Ayo plants herself, as straight and upright as the spear in her hand. Aneka has stationed herself in an offensive position, a short-handled dagger in each balled fist.

Ayo presses her lips together and then lifts her head high. ‘Желание.’ 

Barnes closes his eyes, his face twisting as though in sudden pain and Sam feels a flare of panic across his skin and bile crawl up into his throat.

‘Ржавый.’

It can’t happen, he tells himself. It won’t. 

‘Семнадцать.’

He won’t see Bucky Barnes, all the pain-in-the-ass grumpy, snarky, impossible vibrancy of him, disappear into that terrifying blankness. He can’t.

Ayo’s voice continues, steady and implacable.

And then the room is silent, Sam realises. Except for a faint sound like a sob that catches in the back of Barnes’ throat; his breath rattles in and out and when he passes a hand over his face his fingers tremble uncontrollably.

Aneka’s hands are already empty, her daggers sheathed and she pads silently to Ayo’s side.

Ayo releases a long breath and for the stretch of a heartbeat there is too much written into her face and her body shudders with the excess of emotion. Her chest rises and falls like she’s run a marathon. Then she nods and her lips curve into an almost smile. ‘You are still free. You are still James Barnes.’

His face quivers for a moment, then stills, the corners of his mouth pulling down. ‘But I’m not him.’

Ayo turns her head, long lashes sweeping fast against her cheeks. Beside her Aneka places gentle reassuring fingers against her wife’s wrist; she keeps her eyes on Barnes and they are filled with a sorrowing sympathy. 

‘Okay,’ Barnes says, soft, and he turns to face Shuri. ‘Time to start your tests.’

Shuri prises her fingers away from Sam’s and it’s only then that he realises how tightly they have been holding onto each other. Her nails have left deep marks in his flesh.

Sam raises objections but in the end allows Aneka to steer him out of the lab and around various parts of the outreach centre. 

‘I don’t need you standing there giving me Sad Sam Face while Shuri checks my wiring,’ Barnes had told him, with an accompanying eye-roll, which made Sam simultaneously want to clobber him and somehow borderline weepy with relief because it’s such an absolutely Bucky thing to say. 

So he had followed Aneka and braced himself for a stream of chatter and smalltalk and had been profoundly grateful that apart from pointing out the more impressive aspects of what the centre offers, she had remained largely silent.

It’s not an unpleasant silence, Sam thinks. There’s a warmth that comes off her, a humour in her eyes, that reminds him a little of General Okoye and contrasts with Ayo’s iron-clad inscrutability. There’s still so much of Bucky’s time in Wakanda that is an unknown to Sam. When they had visited him there Sam had always made a point of hanging back, of giving Steve and Bucky the time and space they needed to find one another again (since then he has the feeling that Natasha had very much not made that point because he remembers distinctly seeing a series of photos of a smiling Natasha and a more bashful-looking Bucky with goats and village children and marula trees on the camera roll on Natasha’s phone.) So Bucky’s exact relationship with Wakandan royalty and high-ranking officials is a source of perpetual fascination. Before (and during and after) the whole Zemo affair, Sam had been aware of Ayo as a severe, unbending presence.

And yet.

From the little that Bucky has said, usually at times when he is unaware of how much of himself he is giving away (those after-dark monologues), Sam is aware that Aneka and Ayo gave him food and lodging and care during that dark, turbulent, triumphant time when he could finally reclaim himself for good; and while Bucky undoubtably loves Aneka it’s Ayo that he adores.

Based on the fractious nature of their last interaction, Sam had thought that Ayo tolerated Bucky at best.

After the devastation in her dark eyes and Aneka’s unfiltered concern for both her wife and her friend, Sam realises that Ayo’s love for Bucky runs just as deep and profound as his and now that he can see it, it actually explains her hurt and anger in Latvia.

Hard to get angry at someone if you don’t care about them. 

Aneka leads them into the courtyard and then one of the bio-domes and they settle onto a curved stone bench, Sam letting out a little sigh of gratitude because after the events of the past twenty-four hours, he feels about a thousand years old.

Sultry green a backdrop to everything and then other plants that are shot through with a glittering rainbow of colours and even tiny birds with jewel-like wings flitting from branch to branch and feeding on the nectar of huge waxy-leaved flowers that have opened their faces to the sun streaming through the domed glass roof covering the courtyard.

‘It is hard on you,’ Aneka states, after some moments of contemplative silence.

‘No shit,’ Sam says and then immediately feels the creep of guilt and shame and his cheeks burn. He turns towards her. ‘I’m sorry-’

Aneka waves a hand. ‘There is nothing to be sorry for, Captain. Stating the obvious can sometimes be of help. But sometimes it is merely just stating the obvious.’

Sam huffs out a breath of laughter and feels a scant half-inch of the tension in his chest release. ‘Yeah. I guess.’ Out of the corner of his eye he sees one corner of her mouth tick up. 

When Bucky isn’t thinking about it - and only because Sam has known him long enough now to recognise the word - when he is stressed or angry or thankful or happy, he calls on Bast for whatever intercession is appropriate for the given circumstances. Sam will willingly thank Bast or whoever that Bucky has these women in his life; and, yes, it was T’Challa who gave him sanctuary and time and space and peace but as far as Sam can make out it has been Shuri and Ramonda and Okoye and Ayo and Aneka and the women of the village elders that Bucky has mentioned who gave him healing and home and love.

The way that Sarah had opened up her home and her life and her children to him, accepting Sam’s assurance that he’s harmless with little more than one hard glance and then a nod and then after that her face lighting up a like a lightning bug whenever Bucky is around.

And Sam may joke about Bucky usurping his nephews’ affections but that’s far easier than admitting that there is something heartbreaking about the shy uncertain joy in Bucky’s face when Cass and AJ throw themselves at him, pull him into their endless chatter and fizzing energy and he takes it all with endless patience and a deep profound care that Sam had found himself crying over when he’d really thought about it, roughly a month after the Flag Smashers and Karli’s death and Bucky had been asleep on the pull-out couch down in the den of Sarah’s house.

Sitting on a bench carved out of some kind of fancy rock that’s probably shot through with vibranium and watching an emerald-green bird with petroleum-blue wings feed on the nectar of a hot-pink flower, Sam feels something of those same hot tears press against the back of his eyes and he presses his thumbs into the sockets.

‘He is stubborn, our White Wolf,’ Aneka observes as though she were remarking on the weather. ‘And he is negligent with his own care.’

‘Fuck,’ Sam says, without meaning to, and he sits forward and the tears catch in a hard ball in his throat and he can’t do this, he can’t, but he has to, and he will.

A hand rests in between his shoulder blades, firm and warm and unmoving and Sam thinks that in his life he’s never loved anyone so much after roughly ten minutes’ acquaintance as he does Aneka. He leans slightly into the warmth of her touch and allows himself one small faint sigh of relief.

‘He is lucky, to have you as a friend,’ she remarks, and her dark eyes are fixed on the fluttering wings of the tiny sunbird. 

Sam pulls in a breath, opens his mouth.

‘You also are lucky, I think,’ she adds. Aneka turns to him fully and she is humorous and knowing in how she looks at him. ‘White Wolf is stubborn but he is also loyal. And he is great of heart.’

‘Yeah,’ Sam nods and the tightness in his throat and the pain behind his eyes is unendurable. ‘I know.’

Aneka observes him for a moment and then nods, satisfied. She turns her head and Sam is treated to a study of the fine lines of her perfect profile. ‘Can’t you, I dunno, trace vibranium or something?’ He watches as her shoulders tighten and her chin lifts.

‘Not in such small quantities,’ she says. Her eyes remain fixed ahead. ‘The kimoyo beads allow an accurate fix. But James’ beads are here, with…’ Aneka lets out a breath. ‘It is had to think of them as separate - they are so alike.’

Barnes making breakfast and sending messages to AJ and just generally being his usual grumpy asshole self-

‘Could at least have given us an upgraded model y’know, with a better personality or something,’ Sam says and the words come through molasses and he isn’t sure that his voice doesn’t catch on a high-pitched crack saying it; but then he has his face buried in his hands and his shoulders shudder and Aneka still keeps a steady hand on his back in-between his shoulder blades just in that spot where the wing-pack creates balls of tense knots. And it’s only later, much later, when Sam thinks about her that he is caught by the pain that had been banked down behind her wide brown eyes and the tremor in her lips when she had talked about her friend.

Aneka had taken them to the canteen before they had returned to the lab and there was something of triumph in the way they had brought in copious amounts of food. Vast quantities of egusi soup and jollof rice, that Sam had identified as being not wholly unlike gumbo and jambalaya respectively; Sarah would be fascinated by it and the thought of her created a scratch at the back of his mind, like something important that he’s forgotten, that Sam didn’t have the time or the mental space to properly take out and look at.

Shuri shunts herself up onto one of the lab tables, sits with her feet swinging as she eats, gesturing widely with the hand holding the fork and sending bits of rice scattering. Aneka watches her with an amused indulgence.

The new information stems largely from the tests run: the self-healing is a result of nanotechnology that, while impressive, is not as advanced as Wakanda’s own versions; Barnes’s left arm is a replica, a titanium alloy that is lighter and more flexible than the original HYDRA mechanism but less durable and not as strong as Bucky’s vibranium prosthetic; strength, reflex and speed tests show almost comparable levels with the last results they have for Bucky. If the pair went head-to-head, Bucky would have the advantage, just, of speed, strength and his vibranium arm but Barnes’ self-healing and resultant endurance might give him an edge.

If, somehow, it might come to that. No-one really addresses why this is a consideration.

Sam absorbs the information glumly. The food, at least, is good; the flavours and textures both different enough that they feel new while simultaneously familiar enough that he feels the pull of home and the combination lodges as a dull ache, deep, around his heart.

‘Find any nasty surprises?’ he asks and is pretty sure he already knows the answer - Shuri, he’s certain, would have led with anything dire.

She shakes her head, speaks through a mouthful of rice in a way that has Ayo rolling her eyes with evident disapproval. ‘There is no malware, as it were, or spyware. There is no indication of dormant programming that can be activated.’

‘Doesn’t mean it’s not part of the source code, though, does it?’ Barnes’ voice, heavy and sounding like he’s dragged the words up through his body with great effort. He has spoken little and eaten less, the tines of his fork running tracks through his plate of jollof rice.

Shuri slips off the table, takes herself briskly to the sand table in the middle of the lab and calls up an image. It glows blue, shimmering on the air, intricate and sinuous. ‘This is the last scan that we took of Bucky’s brain.’ She moves her hands and another image appears beside it. ‘And this is the scan we have taken today.’

Sam stares at them. ‘They look the same.’

Shuri’s face curves into a wide grin. ‘They are!’ Her hands move and the two images are overlaid, seamless. ‘The only minor differences are here.’ She zooms deep into the image, expanding on a fine tiny line of ones and zeros. ‘These are new memories from the last few days. Digital mapping has created a synthetic brain that can be implanted into nanotubes that function as neurons. But it is the code that is important. From what I have been able to map, it is contained on a microchip about’ -she holds her thumb and forefinger a few millimetres apart- ‘that big. Once you have the hardware to house it, the synthetic brain can be transposed into any synthetic body.’ She pauses and then adds severely: ‘Do not get any ideas, Griot.’

‘I have no desire to become corporeal,’ Griot states pleasantly. 

‘And that doesn’t sound sinister A-F.’ Sam mutters. Barnes nods in response, head still down, fork dragging through the congealed puddle of rice and soup. The metal scrapes quietly against the plate and that small sound feels like an explosion going off in Sam’s brain, a sudden and almost overwhelming desire to grab the whole lot off Barnes and throw it across the room. He catches himself, forces down a breath that’s become lodged in his throat and feels eyes boring into him.

Ayo, ever watchful and far too knowing, studies both of them, then places her plate carefully on a side-table. She also has not eaten much, Sam notes.

Barnes finally abandons his neglected food, scrubs at already-clean fingers with paper napkins before balling them up, dropping them onto his plate.

‘As far as I can see, there is no difference in brain function between Bucky and you,’ Shuri states. ‘It is a perfect copy.’

‘As far as you can see,’ Barnes says. ‘But you can’t be one-hundred-percent positive there isn’t something somewhere, can you? A, I dunno, a sub-routine buried somewhere?’

‘Why do you have to think the worst, James?’ Ayo’s voice stretched taut and now snapping. Barnes tilts his head towards her, his lips pulling back from his teeth in an unpleasant rictus.

‘Haven’t had much reason to think the best over the years.’

Her lips press together, flatten, before she smooths her face back into its usual ferocious passivity. 

Barnes tilts back to Shuri, eyebrows raised in silent question.

‘Science does not operate with those sorts of certainties,’ Shuri says, weariness creeping in at the edges of her words, even as her chin lifts in defiance. ‘But this is not an unknown area. This is engineering and AI. It has been researched and analysed. I have researched and analysed it and the chance that I am wrong is infinitesimal.’

Whatever words Barnes had been thinking of saying get checked. Sam can see him swallow them down and he nods his head, once. His eyes still look hollowed-out and shuttered.

Sam sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose between his fingers and leans forward. ‘Okay. Can we- Is there a way to tell how long- I mean, how … old…’ Sam gestures vaguely at Barnes and frowns. Barnes glances at him and there is, for a moment, a gleam of amusement.

‘He wants to know when I came online. As it were,’ Barnes states flatly.

‘C’mon, man,’ Sam mutters, shooting Barnes an irate glance. He receives a shrug in response.

‘What? Worried you’re gonna hurt my feelings? Or were you planning on throwing a birthday party for a robot, because that’s just the kind of sappy thing you’d do.’

‘God, shut up!’

Barnes peers at Sam, head tilting and he looks thoughtful. ‘Or is it my expiry date you’re after? Because that’d actually be pretty smart. But also: hurtful.’

Sam presses his fingers into his temples. ‘I hate you,’ he says. ‘So much.’

‘Yeah, I know.’ They’re sitting close enough that Bucky can bump Sam’s shoulder with his. ‘Feeling better?’

Sam stares. Blinks. And huffs out a laugh. ‘Yeah.’ It is, somehow, true.

Aneka snorts, a loud undignified sound that is one part derisive scoff to nine parts something held in that she doesn’t want to let out. There’s a sheen across her eyes and her long lashes sweep across her high cheekbones. ‘Indoda ehlekisayo.’

One corner of Barnes’ mouth twitches upwards. ‘Not the worst thing you’ve called me,’ he tells her. ‘Unless you meant Sam, in which case you should definitely call him something worse.’

She throws up her hands at him, the gold running through the lines of her uniform glinting under the lab lights.

‘There is no time code, if that is what you mean, Sam,’ Shuri says, impatience at having her explanations curtailed more in evidence than annoyance at the good-natured back-and-forth being played out. ‘Sergeant Barnes is not a computer, there is not an activity log.’ 

‘Last week…’ Barnes huffs out a breath, hands gripping the edges of the curved ergonomic chair he’s claimed as his own. ‘I can’t bleed, we established that much last night. I- Bucky cut his thumb the day before he came back up here from DC. So. Last week is when it must have happened.’ His head tilts back a fraction and his voice slips into the calm, neutral tones of a mission report being relayed. 

It’s never bothered Sam when he hears it being delivered to Rhodey. It bothers him now.

‘I spent two days here at the community drive.’ His eyes cut towards Sam. ‘You’d have liked it: there was a cookout and everything.’

‘Wasn’t invited,’ Sam mutters.

Barnes turns his gaze on the Wakandans, jerks his head towards Sam. ‘See, you’ve hurt his feelings.’

Shuri rolls her eyes and Ayo growls something that makes the harsh lines of Barnes’ face soften. ‘They’ve got a Kurosawa retrospective on at the Lincoln Centre. Missed all those the first time around, so that took up a couple of days. Went to therapy-’

Sam starts. ‘I thought you’d finished with Raynor.’ It comes out with more accusation than he had intended.

‘I have,’ Barnes says and his shoulders scrunch awkwardly, like he’s revealed more than he really wanted to but is defiant about it all the same. ‘I chose my own therapist this time. I’m not an idiot, Sam, I know I’m not going to get better on my own.’

‘That-’ Sam finds the twist of emotions more complex than he can fully commit to. He settles for the easiest one and feels his cheeks round in the first full smile in what feels like days. ‘That’s great, Buck. I’m proud of you. Really.’

Barnes scowls at a patch of floor, the tips of his ears turning a shade of delicate pink. ‘See, this is why I don’t tell you this stuff,’ Barnes complains, voice gruff and the colour in his cheeks deepens. ‘Weird. You make it weird.’

Sam feels his grin widen and it eases some of the pressure that lies everywhere in his body. ‘Don’t care. Still proud.’

A twist around that flexible mouth and then Barnes’ features smooth back into neutrality. ‘Had lunch with Yori a couple of times.’ He looks at Sam. ‘And Kate Gupta called me for a follow-up session. So I went to that.’

He feels his stomach drop, even with the inevitability of it all. Kate Gupta and Cal Petersen with their bright, friendly smiles and earnest chat and dorky messages on post-it notes. ‘You went back to DC?’ Sam’s head tilts. ‘You didn’t say.’

Barnes’ mouth tightens, a warning flash like bright lightning behind his eyes. ‘Don’t gotta tell you everything, Wilson. Or are you my parole officer all of a sudden?’

Sam narrows his eyes. ‘No, of course not. I’m just saying we were both in those tests but they didn’t call me.’

‘Obviously they liked me better,’ Barnes says, dry.

‘That’s not what I-’ Sam pinches the bridge of his nose, counts his breaths in and out, in and out. ‘What happened?’

‘Before that,’ Shuri puts in and her voice is sharp. ‘What are you two fools talking about?’

There’s an exchange of looks and then Sam gives her an outline of the favour for Rhodes, the simulations and the make-shift robotics lab with the shelf of artificial eyeballs.

‘Keep telling you, Sam, you gotta stop thinking about the eyeballs,’ Barnes tells him.

‘There were creepy, man.’

‘Anyway, I didn’t go back to DC.’ Barnes sits back in his chair, legs spread out long and to a casual observer he would look almost obnoxiously at ease. Sam is not a casual observer and he knows Bucky Barnes far too well by now, knows how much of that cocksure bravado is a performance to shield his vulnerabilities. ‘I saw Gupta and Petersen at their office at Columbia. The college, not the country,’ he clarifies, unnecessarily. ‘They had me do a few tests-’

‘What tests?’ Shuri, coiled with tension and her dark eyes glitter.

‘Not even any electrodes,’ Barnes tells her and his faint smile is all bitten-off fondness. ‘I sat in an office, squeezed a few stress-balls for strength tests or something, drank a cup of herbal tea that tasted about as good as usual.’ His gaze shifts to Aneka, caught by the stiffening of her tall frame. ‘Obviously I am not including honeybush tea in that assessment, just the terrible American stuff,’ Barnes says, placating and there is a discernible, if momentary, sparkle of amusement deep in his eyes.

Aneka subsides. ‘You do not steep it for long enough,’ she mutters darkly.

‘I steep it plenty,’ Barnes says, that familiar note of complaint in his voice that pulls at the corners of Sam’s mouth. 

‘Anyway, not the point. Everything I can remember from being at Columbia just seems normal. There was nothing- I don’t remember anything feeling off. But at some point last week I went from being a real boy to electronic Pinocchio, so if anything happened…’ He shakes his head. ‘It must have been then. I mean, I just don’t- I don’t see what else it could have been. But I don’t remember anything being wrong… I left, I went up to the Lincoln Centre, took a walk through Central Park… It was nice. Went home, had dinner, I- I talked to Cass and AJ on FaceTime.’ Affection warming his features. ‘It was just normal. At least, that’s how I remember it but you can’t exactly rely on my memories at the best of times, right?’ An attempt at levity that falls flat with the bitterness edging his words and the airless unhappiness in the room. 

Shuri keeps her eyes on Barnes, her chin lifting very slightly. ‘Griot…’

‘I am running checks on Kate Gupta and Cal Petersen,’ his voice states smoothly. ‘And I will have access to the security cameras and feeds shortly. The firewall at this American school is not all that it should be.’ A pause and then Griot adds: ‘The security at your Pentagon is not much better.’

Sam splutters. ‘Pent- You’ve-’ His slightly wild stare is met with three pairs of blandly defiant eyes. Barnes is studying the bare ceiling as though it’s the work of a Renaissance master. Sam drives his thumbs into the hollows of his eyes. ‘Okay,’ he says when he emerges, ‘okay. So, there’s no immediate threat and Barnes is…’ Sam trails off, one speaking hand gesturing vaguely.

‘Fully operational,’ Barnes says, voice flat and behind it is the immeasurable hinterland of the Asset and the Soldier and the relentless cycle of HYDRA’s brutal conditioning that despite their best, horrific, efforts had never been truly complete. They had never really won. The Winter Soldier had been their greatest triumph; Bucky Barnes had made it their greatest failure.

‘Is not gonna get hurt easily,’ Sam states, keeping his eyes on Barnes.

‘He cannot,’ Shuri says. ‘He is strong. Like always.’

‘Don’t think I don’t know what you’re all doing,’ Barnes grumbles, voice too muted to hold any real heat and he studies the mismatched fingers clasped together in his lap.

When Griot projects the footage from the feeds at Columbia, they stand around the sand table. Grainy greyscale images, glitching and jerky. It’s only the reception area that has the cameras, trained on the desk and the bored-looking security officer. For a place boasting multi-million dollar facilities, Sam takes Griot’s point about the lamentable security arrangements. 

Bucky Barnes eases into view, Sam recognising the easy roll of his straight spine, square shoulders, before he turns his head in a quick sweep of the space. He exchanges a few words with the uniformed guy behind the desk before getting waved through a set of double doors just visible on the edge of the footage.

Griot spins forward almost an hour and Bucky appears again, looking just as he had when he arrived. Expression neutral, no sign of tension in the lines of his face, back still straight and the lines of his shoulders still square and strong. Jerks his head at the security guy who doesn’t bother raising his eyes from his phone, and passes out of shot.

‘Is that it?’ Sam glares at the flickering light and shadow dancing in the centre of the table.

‘With regret, I am afraid so,’ Griot says. ‘I will continue a scan of wider security networks in the area. There may be something that will be of help.’

Something that might explain how two nerdy scientists overpowered a super-soldier and replaced him with a robot, yeah that would be helpful. That’s what they’d come here for, dammit. Sam feels the disappointment sitting at the back of his throat like silt. Gritty, choking. Disappointment and anger because the Wakandans were supposed to fix this, they were supposed to have the answers.

The more rational part of his brain nudges him gently. It’s an unfair expectation and an unreasonable one. Aided by her beloved technology, Shuri might be able to work a near-Goddamn miracle but she isn’t magic, God knows he’d told that to Steve enough times when his stoic, hopeful Captain America face had crumpled into bewildered disappointment during those visits to Birnin Zana and he’d been waiting for Bucky to-

Sam sucks in a breath, blinks.

‘Griot, can you send through the footage and anything else you retrieve?’

‘Of course, Sergeant Barnes,’ Griot replies easily. Barnes flinches at the name, lips pinching together, but lets it go.

It isn’t just Aneka who walks with them through the cool winding corridors back to the entrance. Shuri wraps both her arms around Barnes’ right and he submits to the tight embrace when they all hover in the shade of the vestibule. The evidence of her uncomplicated affection is not surprising, nor is the swift and hearty hug that Aneka bestows on Barnes. It’s Ayo that Sam watches with curiosity, her controlled face and the regular breaths that are too measured to be normal.

‘I keep saying thank you,’ Barnes tells her. ‘But again: thank you.’

Her proud head inclines once. ‘It is appreciated but unnecessary. We will await your call, Ingcuka Yombane.’

It startles a laugh out of him. 

Stepping back out onto the Harlem street feels like being ejected into a different world. The skateboarders have gone. Cars idle past, music thuds from a barbershop on the opposite corner. Sam stares at a mural of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King painted onto the weathered brick wall of a building on the other side of the street. Sun-bleached and some of the brickwork has crumbled patchily. 

‘You have to tell Rhodes,’ Barnes says, his voice soft. 

‘Yeah.’

The artist has caught the burning defiance in Malcolm X’s eyes, the unswerving dignity in the curves of Dr King’s face. What would they have thought? Sam wonders. What would they have thought of any of it.

‘You promised Shuri we’d find him.’ The colours of the mural merge further down, deep blues and blacks like shadows swaddling the two men. Or rising above the shadows they had refused to give into, both in their different ways. Art is subjective, after all. Against those shadows someone has added to the mural: rings of red and blue around a white star. Sam shuts his eyes.

‘I did,’ Barnes says and he sounds certain.

Sam turns, fast and blinks at how close Barnes is. He takes a further step forward, peering into the other man’s face with near-belligerence.

‘What happened to being the pragmatist, huh?’

‘I’m being pragmatic.’ A deep-seated calm that should be reassuring but in this moment Sam finds utterly, unreasoningly, maddening. ‘We’ll find him. He’ll be- He’ll be prepared for that.’

Sam reels back, shakes his head. ‘What if they’ve told him about you? Told him that no-one’s even looking because we don’t know anything’s wrong? I mean, he’s… He’s alone in this.’

It hadn’t been a promise, not spoken out loud or even admitted to himself. Something that had nothing to do with Steve, not something done for him or on his behalf: it had been for Sam’s own sake, arising from a sense of peaceful companionship over the course of two days stripping down the boat, throwing the shield about; finally finding the person he’d spent so long chasing down and realising, at last, that he had found a friend. 

He didn’t want his friend to be alone again, not ever.

Barnes takes a long breath and his throat bobs. His eyes move from Sam, landing on the mural, on the shield. He’s still looking at it when he starts talking, voice low and roughened and Sam leans in to hear over the car engines and the insistent bass pulsing from the corner.

‘After I.. he- After I fell, and they found me, and they took what was left of my arm- Th-that’s when they really started to go to work on me. I was pretty out of it most of the time before then. And after. For a long time, probably, I don’t know…’ His eyes go to Sam then, and their stripped-open clarity is almost unbearable. ‘I kept thinking Steve would come for me, like he had before, that I had to be ready for-for when… For when he’d save me. Stupid. I know that. I mean, I knew it even then. Steve didn’t know I was still alive, he couldn’t have. No-one could’ve known I’d survive that fall. Shit, you wouldn’t’ve thought Steve could survive that… Then they told me he was dead. And I knew. I knew no-one was coming. I still kept fighting them, though, I still- I still kept trying to escape until I f-for-forgot. I forgot what it meant. To escape. Or that I was supposed to try.’

Sam opens his mouth and whatever words have risen don’t make it out between the agonising balled-up knot in his throat and the impatient shake of Barnes’ head.

‘But this isn’t that,’ Barnes continues. ‘It-it’s not the same. I know you won’t give up, you won’t stop looking. I know that. And that means that he knows it, too, no matter what. I believe in you. We believe in you.’

Silence pours in. Sam feels it pressing against his ears, buzzing in his head. Sun hot against the back of his neck and the air tastes of diesel and dust. He swallows it down. Sam grabs Barnes’ right forearm, pulls him in and they collide awkwardly, Barnes gruffing out a breath and Sam ending with his nose buried in the turned-down collar of Barnes’ leather jacket. Sam feels blunt metal fingers splayed across his back, stiff and unmoving.

‘What does it mean, what Ayo called you?’

Barnes pushes away, opening space between them. His arms drop. ‘Ingcuka Yombane.’ The corners of his mouth tug up. ‘Electric Wolf.’

Sam nods. ‘Yeah. That’s a good one.’

Barnes scratches the back of his neck, squints against the sun. ‘You gonna call Rhodes?’

Sam sucks on a tooth. ‘Think this is best done in person, you know?’

Barnes nods. They head down the street towards the Metro.

On the bustling concourse of Penn Station, Sam starts heading towards the track that will take them back to DC when he becomes aware that Barnes has stopped. Sam turns, lines etching into his face, walks back to the solitary dark figure who’s planted himself in the middle of the concourse, seemingly oblivious to the rush of life around him. A pair of twenty-somethings dragging heavy suitcases push past Sam, for a moment blocking his view and he feels a stab of something-

They go by and Barnes is still standing there, hands plunged deep into his pockets. 

‘You coming?’ It snaps out on a thrum of irritation. Yes. That’s what it is.

‘Griot’s sent through the security footage and the results of the background checks. Figured I’d start going through those before heading to Columbia tomorrow.’ He raises his voice only slightly over the cacophony of echoing conversations, clattering suitcase-wheels and tinny station announcements. Someone somewhere is playing an acoustic version of an old Beatles song, the melody rising from the tunnels.

Sam tilts his head. ‘That it?’

‘That’s it.’

‘So, you’re headed back to Brooklyn and that’s it?’

Barnes rolls his eyes. ‘Talk to Rhodes, grab the suit. I’ve got food and everything: nice big pot of pho.’

Sam’s lips quirk. ‘Unblocked Mrs Pham’s sink? No, wait - fixed the garbage disposal.’

‘Re-wired the bathroom fan,’ Barnes says and smirks only slightly.

‘That was gonna be my next guess.’

‘Sure.’

Yesterday, Sam thinks, pinning down the tune. He fiddles with a button that’s coming lose on his cuff. ‘So, you’ll head straight back to Brooklyn while I’m in DC?’

‘Jesus, Sam, yes!’

‘Okay,’ Sam nods. ‘Can I trust you not to do something spectacularly dumb? Y’know, like sticking your hand in a socket and short-circuiting yourself? I don’t wanna get back here and find you with smoke pouring out of your ears.’ 

Barnes rolls his eyes. ‘No electrocution. Kinda had enough of that already.’ His chin jerks. ‘You’re gonna miss your train.’

‘Buck-’

Barnes takes a step back. ‘Will you get going?’

Sam spins, heads towards the tunnels. It would be stupid to look back. Melodramatic and sappy, he can hear Bucky saying it. Sam glances over his shoulder, sees the tall figure rock-solid in the crowd. A few more paces and he reaches the mouth of the tunnel, glances back. Barnes is gone.

Sam had spent most of the train ride rehearsing what to say to Rhodey, how to make their current situation sound less like the clusterfuck it actually was.

Partway through the journey his phone had pinged with a message from the colonel himself, that there was an update on the incident from yesterday. Sam had sat for a full three minutes staring at his phone at an utter loss as to how Rhodes could possibly know before the eventual dawning that Rhodes is talking about the incompetent hostage-takers. He allows himself to relax by inches and goes back to running over his script that sounds more trite and hollow with each pass.

By the time Sam is actually in Rhodes’ office with its achingly neat desk, institutionally tasteful beige carpet and soothing generic McArt hanging against the linen-textured cream wallpaper, he’s ready to go pinging off the walls. One of the only signs of any real personality in the place is a framed photo on the desk that Sam had picked up out of sheer curiosity. Rhodes with Tony Stark, arms around each other’s shoulders, both grinning. He thinks about the photo of himself and Bucky in Wakanda that stands in Sam’s bedroom with the rest of his family photos and feels his stomach contract so violently that for a moment he feels lightheaded. 

Sam gulps down air, concentrates on the breaths coming in through his nose, out through his mouth, and replaces the photograph with care. 

Rhodes sweeps in unfussily, his usual air of straight-backed efficiency that gets edged with a certain indulgence for Sam’s sake. In the quiet of his office the faint electromagnetic whirr of his leg braces is just audible. 

The colonel sinks into his chair with obvious relief, weariness written deep into his features but he summons up an approximation of a smile and then his eyes move about the room, brow furrowing.

‘Where’s Barnes?’

‘Brooklyn,’ Sam says without hesitation because it isn’t, under their new regime, technically a lie.

Rhodes’ eyebrows lift for a moment and he sits back in his chair. ‘At least it’s a break from watching the two of you toss your one shared brain cell around.’

He seems pleased with his own joke. Sam smiles thinly, feels a tearing scratch under his skin. He paces. The office isn’t really big enough to pace in, barely any bigger than that shoebox Sam had been given back at the VA and even that he’d had to share with Marla and Frank and all the box files of papers for their support groups. Rhodes’ eyes track his movements.

‘Something on your mind, brother?’

Sam stops, caught, drops into the seat opposite the colonel. ‘You first. Said you had an update?’

Shrewd dark eyes hold on him and then Rhodes nods, once, fingers tapping quietly against the the desktop. ‘It’s not much,’ Rhodes says and he shrugs lightly. ‘Coulda told you over the phone.’ He waits, eyebrows raised. Sam doesn’t say anything. Rhodes sighs and continues: ‘Out of our perps from yesterday, three are in custody and lawyered-up. They aren’t saying anything to anyone except the usual bullshit about fighting for freedom and protecting their country. Four are dead - I got the preliminary autopsy reports and it looks like that’s a result of their own weapons. Whatever training they had wasn’t enough.’ He looks wholly unsympathetic. ‘That leaves Christine Schaeffer. She’s in a coma in Bellevue under police guard. She has a sister living just outside, uh, Newburgh. So far, no lawyer has been called for Ms Schaeffer. I got the impression from the officer who spoke to her that the sister might be … co-operative.’ His head tilts. ‘Figured you and Bucky might want to take a crack at her.’

‘Road trip to Newburgh.’ Sam scrubs at his face, feels no inclination for any of it. ‘And they said being a superhero was glamorous.’

‘They are always Goddamn liars,’ Rhodes says, leans back in his chair. ‘Okay, your turn. Spill, brother.’

Sam hesitates. The cavity of his chest filled with roiling cold, scraping him out until he feels raw with it, nerve-endings a shriek of pain and fear, acid running through his veins and up into his throat. He takes a breath, finds the impossible words.

‘Hey, what do you think about me making a robot that looks, talks, and moves exactly like you?’ 

Tony’s face too close to the camera on the video call, wild-eyed and high on caffeine, lack of sleep and whatever obnoxious hair metal he’d had pounding through his workshops.

‘Tony, no!’ Pepper’s voice, despairing. Tony had turned away slightly, waving an admonishing hand.

‘Tony, yes!’ he told her. And then stared back eagerly at the screen.

‘So, Rhodey, buddy- Great idea, huh? It’s a great idea. Great. Maybe my best ever.’ His eyes narrowed momentarily. ‘Nah, still the arc reactor. That is a work of genius and I am that Goddamn genius. But think about it: we send out Robot You to do all the work and take all the hits while Actual You gets to sit by the pool drinking piña coladas and getting a foot massage off Beyoncé. What d’ya say?’

Rhodes sighed heavily, feeling the headache sitting, punishing, behind his eyes. ‘Tony, no.’

His head tilted, mania skittering around the edges of his smile. ‘Tony, maybe?’

Rhodes schooled his face into something severe. ‘Tony, no!’

There was a moment and then everything deflated. On the screen Tony Stark nodded. ‘Tony, no.’

How many years ago had that been? It feels like a different lifetime. If he’d said yes back then, maybe there would have been an entire robot army to take the hits. Maybe it all would have gone down differently. Maybe.

Rhodes focuses on Sam, on the harsh lines carved into the man’s face and the tension banding across his shoulders. 

‘Why didn’t you come straight to me? Why go to the Wakandans first?’

Sam’s elbows rest on his thighs, hands laced together tight. ‘Barnes was worried he might be, I dunno, programmed to kill. The Wakandans can run better tests a lot faster than we can.’

‘That’s why Barnes didn’t. Why didn’t you?’

There’s a flash in Sam’s eyes, almost like anger deep in the dark hollows. ‘I thought you might take him in first and ask questions after.’

Which was not a response that Rhodes felt particularly happy with even as he recognised its validity. ‘Security is my first priority, Sam, it has to be. It’s yours, too.’

‘No, nuh-uh.’ Sam’s head shakes, vehement. ‘I’m an independent contractor, not a government stooge.’

Rhodes sucks in a breath through his nose, eases back in his chair and decides to let it slide. He’s known Sam a long time now, likes him, respects him. And can see the pain and the worry that’s starting to eat away at Sam’s unravelling edges. He remembers how that feels, the spikiness of it, the sleepless nights and the endless days and the aching void in the centre of his body.

‘Is he programmed to kill?’

‘No.’ Another shake of the head but it’s quieter now. ‘He’s just the same old Bucky but with more chips and wiring. He’s not a threat.’ Sam is intent and serious, dark eyes shadowed under the office’s unforgiving strip-lights. ‘Believe me, no-one is more worried about Barnes being a danger than Barnes is himself. Spent the best part of the past twenty-four hours trying to persuade me or Shuri or Ayo to-’ His lips press together. ‘To switch him off. The only person he’s likely to hurt is himself.’

Rhodes absorbs it all for long moments, both hands braced flat against the top of his desk. Then he pulls open the bottom drawer, pulls out a bottle and two glasses.

One corner of Sam’s mouth curls upwards. ‘Joaquín owes me ten bucks.’

Rhodes raises an eyebrow, pours generous measures into the glasses. ‘How so?’

‘I reckoned you kept an office bottle. He thinks you’re too square.’

‘Square?’ He’s going to have words with that young man next time he sees him. Square. He’s War Machine, he’s a fucking badass. And it’s not like Tony was the only one pulling batshit crazy stunts when they were at MIT.

‘Hey, no point giving me the hairy eyeball, Torres is the one who said it.’ Sam takes the glass that Rhodes slides across the desk, takes some of the drink and his eyes drift closed.

The bourbon slides down smooth and easy, warmth working through the knotty feeling in his stomach but doesn’t quite cut through the tackiness in his head and all of the things that he tries not to think about too much anymore. Keep creeping up on him, is the thing. At the least expected times. Rhodes takes more of his drink. He’d dug out his grandfather’s album at the weekend, listened to it with slightly different ears, wondered how it would sound to someone who had been around to hear Ellington and Ella and Billie when they were still all just kids. He blinks to clear his eyes.

‘Any idea where Bucky might be?’

Sam shakes his head and the shadows deepen, eyes craters in his face. His hands sit tight around his glass. ‘Chasing down Gupta and Petersen is pretty much the only lead we have right now.’

‘Unless they’re dumber than I think they are, they won’t have hung around,’ Rhodes says.

‘Yeah. But right now they don’t know that we know, so…’ Sam’s shoulder hunch and release in a stiff shrug. ‘I figured if Tony had been tinkering around with these LMD things, there might be something in his files somewhere. Might be able to shake something loose that way.’

‘I’ll talk to Pepper.’

Sam’s face pinches. ‘I know you won’t wanna lie to her, man, but- The fewer people who know about this, the better. It’s nothing to do with trust, not Pepper,’ he adds quickly. ‘Just-’

‘I get it.’ It sounds sharper than he means it to. Rhodes unsticks his jaw, works out a kink. ‘Say he’s been gone a full week - you think that would be enough time to…’ The words lodge somewhere in his throat, spiky and bitter.

Sam frowns. ‘To what?’

‘You know what.’ Rhodes raises one hand, wriggles the fingers near the side of his own head. ‘Do whatever it is they do to-’

‘No!’ The word is a bullet-crack in the quiet office.

‘Sam-’

‘No!’ The glass slams down on the desk, amber liquid rocking against the sides. ‘Bucky’s value isn’t just in being the Goddamn Winter Soldier!’

‘I know.’ Punching through steel and concrete to pull terrified survivors out of a collapsed building, shielding hostages from bombs and bullets with his own body, tossing the shield back and forth with Sam, blue eyes always tracking the winged figure in the skies.

‘Do you? ‘Cos that’s the first place you went, man.’

Rhodes pulls in a breath, pushes down the simmer of irritation he feels heating across his skin. ‘You honestly saying you haven’t thought it?’

Guilt flashing through the fear. Sam glares at him. Rhodes pushes on. ‘They took Bucky Barnes, not you.’

‘Buck is a super-soldier. The serum that everyone gets all so fucking turned on by is in his blood. His vibranium arm is probably worth half-a-million all on its own!’

‘Yeah.’ Rhodes nods with a calm that he doesn’t really feel. ‘And he was also someone who got turned into the most effective assassin in history - and you’re telling me that there aren’t dozens of asshole bad guys out there who wouldn’t cough up a few million for the chance to get the Winter Soldier back?’

Sam’s arms throw wide. Out of the chair and he paces the short width of the office. ‘Okay, yeah, fine. There are. And yes, I’m fucking terrified thinking about what someone might be doing to him right now while we’re sitting here drinking bourbon. Happy now?’

The air-conditioner whines like it has every Goddamn day for as long as Rhodes has been in this shitty little office with its thin carpet, thin walls, crappy furniture. Rhodes keeps his voice level. ‘It’s a possibility and we need to plan for it. If he’s-’

‘If Bucky is the Winter Soldier again, I’ll look after him until Shuri can fix him.’ Hands balled at his sides, Sam lifts his chin and the defiant stance doesn’t quite match the fear behind his eyes.

Rhodes presses on, relentless, kinda hates himself for it. ‘And what if she can’t this time?’

‘Then I’ll still look after him!’ Sam’s chest rises and falls, shaky breaths. The tendons in his neck stand out.

Rhodes folds his arms across the desk, leans forward on them. ‘What, you’re gonna hole up somewhere forever?’

‘If we have to. No-one’s gonna put him in a cage again. Not even you.’

The simmer boils over. ‘You think that’s what I want?’

‘I think you can’t wait,’ Sam snaps. His eyes glitter, vicious. ‘What, is this the excuse you’ve been waiting for? Maybe you’ve been behind that desk too long,  Colonel, but you don’t just give up on people.’

‘Yeah,’ Rhodes drawls. His face feels frozen, anger tight in his cheeks and along his jaw. ‘You’re right. I’ve no idea what it’s like to keep looking for a friend when everyone keeps telling you he’s probably dead. Or worse.’

Tony’s haggard body, skin blistered from the desert sun and the terrifying machinery in his chest keeping him alive. Even more emaciated when he’d touched back down to Earth a decade later, eyes burning with pain and anger and the self-recrimination landing harder than anything he’d hand out to anyone else.

Sam blinks, his mouth working, like he’s just caught a wave full in the face, subsumed by it. His body slumps down, only just landing in the chair. The feet squeak against the floor. Sam buries his head in his hands. When he emerges again his eyes are sad and soft. ‘Shit, Rhodey, man, I’m- I’m sorry.’ His throat bobs. ‘I’ve been a real asshole.’

‘Yeah, you have,’ Rhodes agrees. ‘But I guess you’re allowed. Just don’t make a habit of it: it’s not a good look on you, brother.’

Sam nods, slow. His hands pull down his face, smoothing out its lines. ‘I’m scared. I don’t- I don’t wanna think about what might be happening, but it’s all I can think about. Barnes, he- he said that Bucky knows I’m looking for him. That he’ll be trusting in me to look for him, find him. Can’t bear the thought that I might let him down.’

‘How many times did the brass tell you to give up?’

‘Too many. I told them to go fuck themselves.’

‘You’ll never make general that way.’

‘I don’t care.’

Tony grinning, sunburnt skin stretched tight across his too, too thin face. ‘That’s my Rhodey.’

Rhodes swallows it down again, uses more of the bourbon to push the swirl of grief back into that locked-down area of his heart where it has its permanent residence.

‘You’re not alone in this, Sam. I can’t promise I can keep this off the books forever, but I’ll give you as much time as I can. And as much help. You let me know what you need.’

Bunching at the hinges of Sam’s jaw. It looks like it’s aching under the pressure. Sam flings down the last of his bourbon. ‘Thanks, Rhodey.’

Later, after Sam leaves, Rhodes takes down the photo of himself and Tony. Lakers game, they’d had court-side seats, of course. VIP, access-all-areas tickets. Of course. Partied with the players after. Rhodes doesn’t remember who won, doesn’t even really remember the partying. He remembers eating hotdogs and drinking beer and laughing while Tony had yelled at the players and the crew chief and the umpire. Tony’s arm slung easily around his shoulders. 

A robot to do the dirty work, take the hits.

Tony, maybe, he thinks; now, when it’s all too late.

Sam is grateful for the speed and efficiency of the Northeast MAGLEV but even so, DC to New York twice in one day is still no joke. The darkened landscape rushes by in flashes of neon when they pass through urban areas, otherwise it is streaks of gloomy blues and moody greys. He fires off a few messages to Barnes, receives one-word answers and has to be content with that. Head resting against the cool glass window, he even nods off for a few minutes, startling back to wakefulness when the tannoy crackles to life to announce the imminent arrival at Penn Station.

He navigates the tunnels, the vast concourse, down to the Metro tunnels and the train that will take him across to Brooklyn. Backpack with clothes for a week, case with the precious suit beside his feet. He is mostly ignored, as always, on the Metro, the unspoken law of New York City. A few people stare for moments longer than they would at a stranger and maybe a furtive photo gets taken but no more than that. Sam is almost pathetically grateful for the indifferent anonymity of the city. 

He walks the few blocks to Bucky’s apartment building, checks his phone. His last two messages have been delivered but as yet are unread. Outside the street door, Sam stands with the phone in his hand and his thumb hovering over send with the message that he is coming up.

After a few more seconds, Sam deletes the message, shoves the phone in his pocket and shoves away even more ruthlessly the conviction that had taken hold somewhere between DC and here or perhaps even before that, when he’d still been in Rhodey’s office.

Sam has the key ready in his hand before the elevator has reached Bucky’s floor. The miniature shield on his keychain spins and Sam watches it, the light glinting off the concentric circles and the tiny white star.

When he unlocks the front door and pushes it open he is greeted by the comforting warmth of spices rising from the stockpot sitting on the warmer. His eyes scan the place. Wooden floor-boards, brick walls, signs of life in the row of houseplants on the windowsill, the bright throw and cushions on the pull-out couch, the new rug under the equally new coffee table.

Sam moistens his lips but in the end doesn’t bother calling out. Bucky’s sleek black phone and his kimoyo beads sit on the breakfast bar of the dark, empty apartment.

Chapter Text

Two missions and roughly three and a half months after the Flag Smashers and the GRC and Sam splashed across newspapers and newsreels and being either valorised or condemned depending on political persuasion or outright bigotry, Bucky had been back in Brooklyn and had stopped answering Sam’s texts.

Again.

They had got into a habit and maybe when it starts it’s because Sam needs to make sure, needs to be certain that when he presses send Bucky will respond. That he’ll be there, snarky and sassy and annoying and alive.

Bucky does message back, every time, dutifully. Sometimes it’s just one word answers and Sam feels a prickle against the back of his scalp when it happens but it’s more than he got before. Bucky is trying. He’s on the other end, doing his best to reach out to the lines Sam throws him. Sometimes it’s Bucky who instigates it, usually with some complaint about modern life that Sam finds hilarious and endearing and just a little bit heartbreaking.

So because Bucky is his friend and is old as balls and grumpy and a massive pain in the ass, Sam starts this particular day by sending his grumpy, pain in the ass, old as balls, fucking miracle of a human being, best friend a meme.

Bucky doesn’t always sleep so well but sometimes, slowly, more often, he does; and on those days when he doesn’t he won’t send back an insult for a couple of hours at most. 

This time is more than a couple of hours.

Time trickles from early to mid-morning, through lunch into the afternoon. Sam hauls in groceries, checks his phone, puts the shopping away, checks his phone, heads down to the docks, shoots the shit with Tommy, checks his phone. Delivered looks back up at him like a taunt. He rings Bucky’s number and it rings and rings and rings and goes to voicemail. Again. Electronic voice intoning the generic message because Bucky has never got around to recording one of his own.

Sam damn near throws the phone across the shed.

He doesn’t, just taps out another message.

And pushes the phone into his pocket. 

Sam stacks crates on crates, feels the sweat beading along his hairline, running down his back, pooling in the hollows and crevices of his body. He resolutely ignores the phone shoved into his jeans pocket and the way that it doesn’t ping or ring or vibrate and maybe he should just check that he hasn’t actually set it to Do Not Disturb by accident, because that has actually happened before-

‘Instead of whining about it, why don’t you do something about it this time?’ Sarah asks, more of a demand, dark eyes glittering and she rubs the back of her right wrist against her sweat-damp forehead. 

‘What do you mean “this time”?’

She huffs out a breath. Fish scales glinting on her hands, on her clothes, her long braids tied up under an old scarf. She still manages to look regal, just like their mother always had, so assured and self-possessed and certain. Sam just plays at it, he thinks, and most of the time he manages to fool people. Even himself.

Not Sarah, though. Never her.

‘I mean,’ she says, voice heavy and throat a little scratchy from the fatigue of too many too long days, ‘if you’re so worried-’

‘I’m not worried-’

‘If you’re so worried,’ she repeats, thin patience fracturing, ‘you’ll actually do something instead of just complaining that the most traumatised veteran in the history of forever, the guy with PTSD and depression, doesn’t respond to text messages like a fully healthy person.’

Sam’s mouth works. ‘I- I-’ He chews on it, gets it up past the thing constricting his throat. ‘I tried, okay, but I had- There was a lot going on.’

Sarah’s face softens. She is softer now, more like the person he remembers before the Blip happened and grief happened and Sam wasn’t there and wasn’t there and-

‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘There was a lot. I get it. But it’s different now.’ The corners of her mouth tick, pulled into something sad and a little uncertain. ‘He hasn’t answered my texts, either.’

Which- Okay. The fearful part of the mix of fearful and pissed skyrockets its way into dominance. Forget hopping the next flight, Sam’s gonna strap on his own damn wings; maybe he just should have done that right back at the start, got some things hammered out then but it had worked itself out in the end, they were fine, they’d been fine, things had been good-

Sam jostles the keys to the truck in his hand, already working out flight paths in his head when his phone rings, the tone bouncing around the shed. He drops the keys, metal on concrete, pulls out the phone and presses the green icon before he’s fully registered the caller ID.

‘Sam.’

‘Where the fuck have you been?’ His voice comes out strangled. There’s a pressure behind his eyes, burning in his lungs. 

‘Sorry. I went out for a run this morning-’

Sam feels his stomach lurch. It had happened once before, Bucky waking both of them with a screaming nightmare, his eyes hollowed-out and terrified before he had finally realised where he was, who was with him, had bolted before the sun was up and hadn’t returned until his body and mind were punishingly exhausted and he had showered and then crawled into the bed in Sam’s spare room and Sam had sat, carding his fingers through his friend’s still-wet hair and wondering how much more hell one good man would have to take before he was graced with any peace.

Bucky is talking, Sam realises, and he sounds apologetic but light somehow. Like this isn’t a big deal.

‘-left my phone. When I got back to my building the whole damn place had been evacuated, firefighters everywhere, the street was cordoned off… Only just got back in.’

Sam toes open the door to the office, sinks down onto the battered old couch with its broken springs and patches of worn-through upholstery. Awful faded green that was probably awful when it was new, who would choose that colour- 

‘Sam,’ Bucky says on the other end of the call.

He pinches the bridge of his nose, squeezes his eyes shut.

‘Sam,’ Bucky says again. 

He blinks. Oh. Right. ‘Yeah, I- I figured it was something like that. You, uh, you’re okay? Your building, I mean, your building is, like, not burnt down or anything?’

The couch smells of spilt coffee and, unsurprisingly, slightly of fish.

‘No, not burnt down. Suspected gas leak or something. Everything’s fine. I- I’m fine, Sam.’

‘Good, yeah, good, that’s… Good.’

There’s a pause. He can hear Bucky breathing. 

‘I like the picture thing. It’s funny.’

It had seemed that way this morning. Sam stares at the calendar over Sarah’s desk and the notes written in the boxes in her blocky capitals: bill due-dates and dental appointments and recitals-

‘Shouldn’t be so hard on yourself, though, you’re not that old.’

Sam sputters. ‘You- It’s you, asshole, you and your dumbass old man rants.’

‘Eh,’ says the old man, ‘I dunno, Sam, you have to admit you really enjoy a good complaint. I mean, it’s basically your superpower.’ 

‘I hate you,’ Sam tells him, ‘so much.’

‘I know.’ 

There’s a rustling sound and everything gets muffled for a few seconds. 'Gonna take a shower, I’m pretty sweaty.’

Sam screws up his face, studies the neatly-stacked binders on the shelves beside the calendar. ‘Too much information, man.’

‘I can turn this into a video call, you can monitor the whole thing.’

‘You are the literal worst. This is what I get for worrying about your sorry ass.’

Bucky’s soft, regular breaths. When he speaks again there’s a tenderness to his voice, a gentle thing that soothes itself against Sam’s ears and itching nerves. 

‘I’m sorry you were worried, but … I’m kinda glad you were. It’s nice.’

Sam scratches at the faded knee of his well-worn jeans, nails catching against the age-softened fibres. ‘Yeah, well…’

He thought they were past all of that a long time back.

Sam puts the case with the suit down on the floor, handles it with great care, closes the front door firmly, glares at the brick walls, the wooden floor, the couch, the shadows swaddling the corners of the room, the outside lights reflecting through the windows.

‘Goddammit, Bucky!’

‘I share your frustration, Captain Wilson.’

The smooth voice, slightly tinny, interjecting from- where? Sam feels his heart punching in his chest. ‘Who- What?’

‘Forgive me. It was not my intention to startle you.’

A blue pulsing line flares gently along the bottom of the phone screen. Sam takes two steps towards the breakfast bar where it’s lying, unsticks his lips from his teeth and works his tongue around the words.

‘Gr- Griot?’

‘Indeed. Sergeant Barnes requested that a version of my programme be placed on his phone to aid with locating White Wolf.’ There is a pause and the AI’s voice takes on an annoyed tone, sharpening the edges of his words. ‘There was no indication that he intended to disappear.’

Sam presses his hands against the counter-top, stares at his dark fingers splayed against the pale surface. ‘No Goddamn reason for him to disappear.’ His fingers flex. He relaxes his hands, pushes himself up. The backpack straps slip down his shoulders and it slithers down to the floor, knocking against the backs of his legs on the way. Sam stretches out his shoulders, does a circuit of the tidy, spartan room, flicks on the lights on his way around. He makes it back to the breakfast bar, leans against it.

‘There is a message for you,’ Griot says cautiously. ‘If you wish me to play it.’ It isn’t phrased quite as a question. 

Sam squeezes his eyes shut. ‘Yeah. Yeah, go on.’

The kimoyo beads flare with the same blue light, an image flickering to life between them. Sharp-cut jawline, heavy dark hair falling into the cratered blue eyes.

‘Hey, Sam. I know you won’t understand this, and I know you’re gonna be mad-’

‘Mad? Mad?! You Goddamn right I’m gonna be mad, you motherfucker-’

The apartment walls are too close, brick and wood and shadow barely pushed back by the circles of light from the lamps. Bucky hates overhead lighting. Still keeps all of the fixtures filled with their quota of working bulbs, but. Strip lights, bare bulbs hanging from concrete and steel girders, even fancy arrangements with pendants or uplighters, he hates them. Given the givens, it isn’t surprising. Even so, Sam had still found it reassuring that Bucky had gone to the trouble of actually going out (or even staying in, what with online shopping and all) and buying a standing lamp for over by the cabinet with the record player and his ever-expanding collection of vinyl records and second-hand paperback books. Plus the lamp for the end table he had acquired that sits next to the couch and that he had told Sam with a totally straight face helps pull the room together.

Sam sucks in air that has trouble finding its way into his lungs, stays somewhere shallow, and he wheezes slightly, trampling over the slightly fraught feeling of not enough air because he doesn’t have time for panic attacks, never mind all of the unpacking of what has led him to the point of having a panic attack.

The last is pretty easy actually: his best friend and partner going missing, the aforementioned being replaced by a replica, the replica then also going missing but this time under his own steam because-

Because he’s an asshole, is why. Because Bucky Barnes would sooner give Sam Wilson a thousand premature grey hairs (any he has are one hundred per cent the fault of one James Buchanan Barnes anyhow) than stick around and say, hey Sam, I’m kinda freaked over being a robot-

I think I might hurt people-

Eyes wide and stricken and hunted in a way that Sam had only really seen in photographs and snatches of CCTV footage, hurt radiating off him like heat-

I know it’s all fake, I’m fake, it- It’s cruel!

So. Maybe he had said it. Maybe he had been saying it all along. 

Sam’s head falls back; he studies the ceiling and the faint network of cracks creeping out of one corner.

Between the triangle formed by the phone and the two kimoyo beads, the silvery, hollowed-out figure of Bucky Barnes hovers and the expression on his face has been caught as something solemn and solicitous.

‘Griot, can you play it back from the beginning. Please?’ 

Sam tells himself that Griot is no different from any other digital assistant programme, even if he has been programmed with impeccable manners. Even so. Maybe because he is Wakandan or maybe because right now he’s the only actual link Sam has to Bucky or Barnes or both or either of them-

‘Hey, Sam. I know you won’t understand this, and I know you’re gonna be mad. And I’m sorry.’

Big blue eyes all wide and earnest and Sam buckles under that look, every time. Asshole.

‘I know Shuri ran all the tests but- I know they said the words won’t work and there’s no murder-spree protocols programmed into me. But it- it isn’t one hundred per cent. I trust Shuri with my life, of course I do but right now, I … I don’t trust your life with me, Sam. I don’t. I can’t. I- You’ve been hurt by me before and that was bad enough but if it happened now, if I hurt you or any of the people that we care about, I couldn’t live with it. So. Figured it was best to keep myself away from all of that. Just in case.’

Barnes’ lips pull up a fraction, the almost-smile not reaching his eyes.

And how well did that work out last time? Sam thinks tiredly.

‘I knew you’d try to stop me if I told you - sorry I went behind your back. You deserve better than that but keeping you safe sorta outweighs that. And I’m not running because it’s the easy option, this- this isn’t easy.’

A breath pulled in and out.

‘I’ll follow up the leads. Anything I find out, I’ll make sure it gets to you. Griot’s real good at getting intel, getting you into places, so that should help.’ Barnes’ mouth flattens, he chews on the inside of his lip. ‘Make sure you eat the pho, Mrs Pham will want her stockpot back tomorrow.’ Another pause. Softness hinting in those hollowed-out eyes. ‘You take care, Sam. I… Bye.’

Silence pours in. Sam becomes horribly aware of the rise and fall of his own chest, of the way his breath is stuttering slightly. Heart hammering high and loud in chest.

‘Idiot,’ he grinds out, finally.

‘I agree that Sergeant Barnes’ judgement is flawed in this matter,’ Griot tells him. In the confines of Bucky’s apartment, there’s a warmth to Griot’s smooth, well-modulated tones that hadn’t been apparent in the echoing space of Shuri’s lab in Harlem. ‘The probability that he poses a danger is so slight that it is barely a possibility.’

But still a possibility, however slight. Once Sam would have found that possibility terrifying. It’s been a long time now, longer even than the time they have spent working together, that he’s been willing to risk it.

Bucky, on the other hand…

‘Don’t suppose he gave any hint where he was going?’

‘He did not,’ Griot confirms.

The blue line flares happily as Griot speaks, rising and falling with the shifts in his voice. Sam watches it. 

‘And you didn’t tell anyone? Not Shuri or Ayo?’

Blue steady against the sleek black, unwavering. ‘My purpose is to serve,’ Griot tells him. ‘That is how I am programmed. I was replicated onto Sergeant Barnes’ device in order to serve him. This is how he wished me to be of service.’

Maybe I’m just programmed that way, Barnes’ face lined with weariness and all that fear banked down behind his eyes.

‘So, you’re an app now?’

Sam would swear that an actual honest-to-God sniff answers that. 

‘I am a digital assistant,’ Griot states with dignity, ‘with advanced cognitive abilities.’

Sam feels his lips twitch. ‘Sorry. Didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.’

‘I do not have feelings, Captain. I cannot be hurt.’

‘But Barnes does,’ Sam murmurs. ‘He- he’s hurting.’

The blue line pulses gently. 

‘Yes. The coding of Sergeant Barnes’ neural pathways mimics precisely the structure of the human limbic system. Consequently, it would appear that he  experiences the equivalent of human emotion, much as the synthezoid that you called Vision did.’  

Hurting and alone. Just like after Insight. Just like after Steve left.

Sam scrubs at his face, palms rough against his cheeks. He propels himself across the small space of the kitchenette, towards the stockpot and stares down at the glass lid fogged with steam.

‘Sergeant Barnes was insistent that you should eat once you had arrived.’

Sam nods. ‘Yeah. Sure.’ Something in his brain stubbornly kicks against it. His stomach, however, rebels, contracting with hunger and the possibility of the satiating warmth and comfort of Mrs Pham’s pho. One of these days she’ll surprise them with some other perfectly, delicately, balanced dish from her homeland but if that day never comes, Sam is entirely content with what she gives so generously.

In return for the care and attention that Bucky gives so generously, bleeding her radiators, unblocking her sink, listening to her quavering voice tell her proud stories about the son in San Francisco whom she rarely sees.

Just like Bucky looks out for the two widowed Indian ladies who share the apartment immediately above his, and looks out for the distressingly quiet young woman and her daughter one floor down who may or may not be running from an abusive ex but Bucky is pretty sure she is and is ready, willing and able to deal with the asshole if he ever shows his face. Until then he plays with her little girl, installs and maintains heavy-duty locks on her front door and fetches her groceries when she can’t bring herself to leave the safety of her apartment.

Sam pulls a bowl out of one of the kitchen cabinets, ladles out a generous helping of pho and sighs into the first mouthful. Silky noodles against his tongue, the kick of chilli, fresh bright coriander and melting chicken. It is nothing like Sarah’s cooking but it has the same effect: it is grounding and warming and home. It is always and forever this sparse, small apartment in an old block in Brooklyn.

Bowl in hand, Sam wanders around the space that he’s come to know so well, drops down onto the couch and his attention is immediately caught by a stack of coloured paper. He picks them up. Designs for flyers, by the looks of them. Doodling sketches inked against the cheerful orange and deep pink. Adverts for a bookstore that also, somehow, seems to be a wine-bar. The sketches pick out shelves of books and wine bottles with indistinct curlicued labels. Come for the wine, stay for the books, says the strap line in a version of Bucky’s elegant longhand.

The drawings aren’t the Steve level of artistry, but they are charming. Sam stares at them, at the variations dancing across the pinks and oranges and tries to make sense of it. Is this Bucky’s dream? Is he planning on opening a bookstore? There’s already an address listed on some of the prototype flyers, though. Is it his? Or does he do freelance graphic design when he’s not running around with Sam trying to change the world? 

Also: how did Sam not know that Bucky is artistic?

He puts the papers back on the coffee table, keeps his eyes on them while he eats his pho, tries to concentrate on the hot chilli, spicy ginger, bright coriander. 

When he’s finished, Sam dutifully empties the leftovers from the stockpot into plastic containers he found in a cupboard that he’s pretty sure are just re-purposed takeout boxes and then washes out his bowl and the pot, ready for Mrs Pham to collect it in the morning.

He showers, standing under the pounding pressure until his muscles start to ease, the temperature turned up high until the heat feels cold against his skin.

He feels boneless, wrung out, when he pulls a fresh T-shirt and boxers out of his bag, puts them on and hovers in the doorway between the bedroom and the living room. 

Every time he stays here they go ten rounds over who gets the bed and who gets the pull-out so it’s kinda nuts that he’s going through it on his own but by now it’s tradition. Sam glares at the couch and snorts and turns back into the bedroom.

The bedding is fresh, he notices, when he turns it down. Who the hell bothers to make up the bed with clean sheets before they go on the lam?

A moron, he decides. That’s who. 

There’s a scent, sweet and herbal, when he buries his face into the pillow and he spends moments chasing it down. Lavender. When the hell did Bucky Goddamn Barnes become the person who laundered his bedsheets with fucking lavender detergent?

‘It is a calming scent,’ Griot offers from his current residence in Bucky’s phone that’s on Bucky’s bedside table. ‘It promotes feelings of wellbeing that can lead to more regular and settled sleep patterns.’

‘I said that part out loud, huh?’ Sam says, face still buried in the pillow and his words muffled.

‘Yes.’

‘Hn.’

Somewhere in the back of his mind is the vague thought that an AI listening to his every utterance is sinister and an invasion of privacy and a potential security threat. 

He says: ‘Goodnight, Griot.’ Because it seems rude not to.

‘Sleep well, Captain,’ Griot replies, voice soft, like he knows, like he’s sorry for this, for all of this.

It shouldn’t really be comforting.

It is.

Sam leaves the stockpot outside Mrs Pham’s door with a thank-you note tucked under the lid. She’s a sweet woman, but Sam isn’t up to her bright chirrups and fielding questions about where Bucky is.

The phone and the kimoyo beads have been slipped into his jacket pocket; he is aware of the solidity of them, the unexpected weight, with every step.

Out on the sidewalk the air still retains a bite of cool that will be lost as the day progresses. Sam peeks into the alleyway running down the side of the building, where Bucky usually keeps his motorbike. It’s gone, of course, and Sam thinks about setting Griot to track the CCTV systems and traffic cameras for the number plate.

And can almost hear Bucky’s annoyed huff, blue eyes amused and almost pitying. Really, Sam? Like I wouldn’t think to swap out the number plates? This isn’t my first rodeo.

Sam frowns. That last part doesn’t sound like Buck.

Whaddya think I am, a schmuck?

Yeah. That’s better.

Sam turns at the corner of the block, heads down a quieter side-street with its close press of houses, orange brick and muted wooden slats, steep flights swooping up to the doors. Occasional sparse trees dot the sidewalk. It’s a nice neighbourhood, Sam thinks, just skirting the edges of a trendier one and soon to be subsumed by it. He continues until he reaches the gap in the buildings, chain-link fence bounding the lot of packed-down earth and dusty gravel where the inoffensive, nondescript car they use for travel around and just beyond New York is kept. Sam has no idea where the car came from and is fairly certain that, even in the name of making missions easier, Bucky would never have willingly parted with cash for such an uncool car. Just like he’s fairly sure Bucky doesn’t actually pay the parking fees because whenever Sam has offered to cover half - he uses the car as much as Bucky does, more probably - he get’s waved away.

The little hut by the barrier spills out tinny music, beats and rap spat out in husky Spanish. The plexiglass windows are fogged with dirt and decorated with an array of once-cheerful stickers, now largely faded and partly scraped off. The guy posted inside is dark-eyed, silvery stubble creeping across his cheeks and jaw and has the thick-set build of a gone-to-seed boxer. The eyes sharpen for a moment when they run over Sam, darting to places on his body where a weapon might be concealed and when the appraising gaze reaches Sam’s face it recedes back into studied boredom. He jerks his head and Sam nods in response, continues across the lot to the innocuous dark grey Mondeo sitting in the perfect spot to allow for an unobstructed getaway.

Sam slides into the driver’s seat, spends a few moments adjusting the mirrors which by now he’s pretty sure Bucky puts into the most ludicrous configurations just to fuck with him because there’s not that much height difference between them, before peeling out of the lot.

It’s early enough in the day that the journey into Manhattan isn’t complete gridlock but it’s still late enough that it’s a stop-start with the usual cacophonous accompaniment of car horns and thumping music blaring out. He swings up through Midtown, skirting Central Park and then the roads widen out into grand thoroughfares flanked by low buildings, rolling expanses of greenery and the white stone colonnades and domes of the campus buildings glowing serenely in the mid-morning light.

How the other half lives, Sam thinks, and thinks again about the pathetic collection of thrown-together shanties that have sprung up in Central Park in the post-Blip chaos. Hoovervilles, Bucky calls them, a sardonic twist to his lips that barely conceals the anger; he’d fought, died, suffered unimaginably, been resurrected only to fight and die and be resurrected again and fight again and the world still offers the same horrors and the same desperations.

Sam keeps saying that they can do better.

He sometimes wonders how, given everything that has happened and now that he knows Bucky, really knows him, Bucky doesn’t just walk away from it all. 

A narrow side-street offers a parking spot and Sam eases in, jogs lightly towards the building where Gupta and Petersen apparently have their offices. A more modest affair than the gracious sweep of neo-classical grandeur afforded by the main buildings. Red brick and dirty-white stucco sitting uneasily against a more brutal concrete extension.

‘Not exactly impressive,’ Sam murmurs. He doesn’t make a habit of talking to himself but it’s- Dammit, it’s weird not having someone to talk to.

‘The buildings, on the whole, are pleasant,’ Griot’s voice, slightly muffled,  emerges from Sam’s pocket. ‘The research, however, is negligible.’

‘That a fact, huh?’ Sam’s eyebrows quirk. ‘They still managed to build a whole-ass robot that can fool everyone into thinking he’s real.’

‘Sergeant Barnes is an android, he is more than a mere robot,’ Griot states. ‘Admittedly, his creation is an unexpected outlier.’

One they could have done without, Sam thinks. He finds the glass doors, pushes them open and recognises the small reception space from the grainy footage. Same wood-effect desk and panelling, same plexiglass screen. Different guard on duty, though. A woman of indeterminate age and aggressively-dyed purple hair glances up and her eyes widen a fraction in that moment of recognition.

‘You’re Captain America!’

Sam pastes on a smile, letting his shoulders relax and tries to exude the friendliness that normally comes to him so easily. ‘Ma’am.’ He leans slightly against the counter.

She grins back, long nails beating a happy tattoo against the edges of her desk.

‘I was wondering if Doctor Gupta or Doctor Petersen are around?’

‘I- oh.’ A frown divots between her brows. ‘I already told Sergeant Barnes-’

‘He was here?’

Her smile tightens a little. Sam forces his own to relax, willing warmth into his eyes. 

‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘Like, an hour ago. I told him Doctor Gupta is on leave. I think Doctor Petersen is at a conference - no-one was really sure about that.’ The frown deepens, eyebrows lifting. ‘Don’t you two work together?’

‘We do. But, uh, always forgets his phone. Y’know, not as young as he used to be.’ He says it conspiratorial, leaning a little closer like this is a joke just between them.

She laughs, face smoothing out and Sam wonders the odds of her letting him take a look around anyhow-

Unlikely, he decides.

On the way back to the car he gives into the bite of annoyance. An hour, just an hour out, he had been so close. Sam had spent the better part of two years being repeatedly so close and it’s as annoying now as it was then. The annoyance is tempered with another feeling, though, something that cuts a little deeper.

Sam pulls in air through his nose, blows it out, repeats that a few times.

‘Do you wish me to track Sergeant Barnes through the CCTV network?’ Griot offers. Sam pulls the phone out of his pocket, places it on the dashboard. Seems wrong to keep Griot shoved away like that, somehow.

‘Nah. No point.’

‘What do we do now?’

‘I promised Rhodey I’d go talk to someone out in Newburgh - maybe get a lead on the attack the other day.’

Griot remains silent.

Sam starts the engine, this time flicks on the radio. The car is immediately filled with upbeat jazz that sounds distinctly of an older vintage. Sam scrolls through all the pre-sets. They are all the same pre-set. Every damn one of them.

‘Oh, you think you real funny, huh?’ Sam demands of the passenger seat where Bucky should be. ‘We had an agreement, man. Half of these pre-sets belong to me.’

He maintains a low mutter under his breath for a few blocks. He could retune, find something from this century at least. He doesn’t though. Lets the drum beat and strings carry the soaring clarinet and taps his fingers against the steering wheel in time.

Skyscrapers give way to older, single and double-storey buildings which in turn drop away into flat lots of concrete and old warehouses that have been repurposed as refugee centres. Makeshift shacks lean against each other, sheets of corrugated iron and tarpaulin stretched over as roofs. A group of skinny kids chase each other between the precarious structures, behind the chainlink fence with the padlocks on the gates and rolls of barbed wire along the top. 

Sam’s hands grip the steering wheel, skin stretched tight over his knuckles.

The industrial lots crumble into verdant rolls, the road twisting through banks of slate-grey rock and banks of trees in frothy shades of bright green against darker leaves. A clear, bright sky, blue stretching wide, powdery along the skyline. Sam blinks against the glare of clear sun, fishes a pair of sunglasses out of the glovebox. Heavier frames than his own, he feels the weight of them against the bridge of his nose, glances in the rearview mirror. Looks good, he thinks.

‘Might hang onto these,’ he tells the Bucky-shaped space beside him.

‘I would not advise it,’ Griot says mildly.

Sam puts his eyebrows up. ‘You sayin’ I am not rocking these? ‘Cos I am rocking these.’

‘I am saying that there may be repercussions when White Wolf finds out.’

Like Bucky taking the opportunity to really fuck with him, more than usual. Sam grins to himself. 

He threads through a maze of narrow, hemmed-in streets with their packed-together houses that seem to lean against each other like they’re holding one another up. An air of neglect hangs heavy over the neighbourhood: dilapidated storefronts, whole rows with boarded-up windows, potholed asphalt, spindly trees at irregular intervals on the sidewalks, thin branches bent like desperate fingers. 

Sam turns another corner, finds a row of slightly better-kept single-family homes. He pulls up in front of the one that corresponds to the address that Rhodes had given him for Michelle Johnson, sister of Christine Schaeffer who may or may not come out of her coma.  

Sam retrieves Bucky’s phone, hesitates with the car-door part open. ‘Uh, Griot, don’t take this the wrong way, but-’

‘I will not intervene in your interrogation of Ms Johnson.’

‘It’s not an interrogation, I’m just talking to her,’ Sam says, scanning any possible movement on the street behind in the rear-view mirror.

‘Of course,’ Griot answers, placating, somehow managing to sound slightly condescending.

‘I-’ Sam squeezes his lips together, pushes the phone into his pocket.

When Sam knocks on the front door he takes a step back, hands loose and open at his sides. Non-combative, unthreatening. He waits until the door creaks open.

‘Ms Johnson?’

Michelle Johnson is 36 according to the file Rhodes sent. She looks older. Tired eyes in a puffy face, greasy dishwater-blonde hair scraped back. The faded turquoise tank-top looks stretched out over her ample frame.

‘I’m-’

‘I know who you are.’ She sighs, lines deepening around her eyes. ‘You’d best come in.’

Sam follows her through the house. Respectable, if well-worn, furniture, toys strewn across the carpet. In the kitchen dirty dishes are still piled in the sink.

‘Kinda behind hand today,’ she says, leans against the tall dark-wood cabinet. ‘You want some coffee?’

‘Thanks.’ He doesn’t, really, but it seems impolite to refuse.

She nods, something working around her jaw. ‘I don’t blame you for what happened.’

Real fucking big of her, Bucky’s voice says, like he’s right there; Sam could almost swear that he can catch a glimpse of him out of the corner of his eye, arms folded looking all unimpressed. What with her sister being a terrorist and all.

Not now, Sam tells his inner-Bucky. Instead he nods, which seems to be enough for Michelle Johnson. She pulls mugs out of a cupboard, fills them from the pot, pushes one towards Sam, along with a bowl of sugar and some creamer.

‘Thanks.’

It’s decent coffee, better than expected.

‘I already spoke to the police. Agents. Whatever.’ Her hands grip her mug. ‘I don’t really know what more I can say. I don’t know anything about those people.’ There’s a hard, brittle note to her voice.

‘Okay,’ Sam nods, tries to be kind. ‘That’s okay. We’re just trying to figure out what happened and why. See if there’s anyone else out there involved in this group. We just want to make sure no-one else gets hurt.’

‘Sure,’ she says, quiet. She takes some of her coffee, stares down at the tile-patterned linoleum floor. Place looks like it hasn’t been redecorated since the 80s.

Sam lets the silence bed in for a moment, then another. ‘Have you any idea why your sister might have got involved in something like this?’

‘God!’ Her eyes glitter, hands tightening until the knuckles show white. ‘No, I don’t- I…’ Michelle’s lips press together and then her round shoulders slump. ‘Her no-good boyfriend, probably.’

Sam’s head tilts. ‘This no-good boyfriend got a name?’

‘Craig.’ She puts down her mug, rubs at her forehead. ‘Look, we’re conservative, okay? There’s- there’s nothing wrong with being conservative. We’ve never hurt anyone. We were never that kind of family.’

‘What kind?’

Her eyes run over Sam, look away. She moistens her lips. ‘Our folks were strict, I guess. I never really minded it, but Chrissie… She acted out a lot. Always pushing things. She-she started using real young, got in with a bad crowd. She was never a bad person, though, she was just …’ A pause while she searches for the word. ‘Confused.’

‘I get that,’ Sam tells her, nodding again. It’s like muscle memory after all of those counselling sessions. He leans against the breakfast bar, keeping his shoulders open, his face neutral.

‘Chrissie got herself straightened out after our dad died, she got clean. She’d been clean over a year, she was doing real good. I thought…’ She huffs out a sad, tremulous smile. ‘I thought I’d finally got my sister back. Then she turned up here with this guy. Craig.’ Her eyes dart to Sam and slide away again. ‘Like I said, we’re conservative but we’re not- We were never racists and the stuff he was coming out with, it-it was, y’know, like fucked up.’ Red blotches on her cheeks. She won’t look at Sam.

‘I’m guessing he had something against me?’ 

Michelle’s eyes pinch closed. Her shoulders slump further. ‘He had this sticker in the window of his car.’ She talks slow, reluctant. ‘Y’know the ones. “Not My Captain America”. He seemed real proud of that.’ She stares at her hands.

Sam absorbs it distantly, like it isn’t really anything to do with him. He leaves the bitter taste of simmering anger to what he imagines would be the sharp bright glitter in Bucky’s face.

‘This Craig got a last name?’

‘I don’t know.’

Sam’s eyebrows go up. ‘Really?’

Her hands throw wide then. ‘Look, I wanted him out of my house and away from my kids, okay? I didn’t really give a shit who he was, I just wanted him gone. I told Chrissie she was welcome to stay, but she wouldn’t! She wouldn’t. She-she left with him. My little sister.’ The sudden anger washes away, leaving behind tears that seem to take Michelle by surprise, as though she had thought she was all out of them. ‘And now she’s in hospital and she might not wake up and I don’t know why.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Sam says, soft, after a moment. 

She nods. 

‘He was military, or ex-military, I think,’ she offers, her voice quiet again and strained. ‘He wore one of those jackets. Y’know. Camouflage.’

Sam watches her and says carefully. ‘You can pick those up in surplus stores.’

Her lips push out and she nods. ‘I guess. But he talked about training. Being on base.’

‘You remember where? Afghanistan, maybe?’

Her shoulders rise and fall. ‘I dunno. Don’t remember him talking about the desert. I mean, most guys do. Who’ve been out there.’ She sighs and looks at Sam. ‘But like I said, I wasn’t really listening. I didn’t give a shit what that asshole had to say.’ Chin lifted, not defiant exactly, but she’s said her piece.

‘Okay.’ Sam summons up what he hopes is a friendly smile. ‘I appreciate you talking to me. I know this is hard.’

She looks at him.

‘Would it be okay if I leave my number? Just in case you remember anything else. Or- or if you need to talk to someone.’

An expression that he can’t parse chases across her face. But she takes the number.

‘So. Craig, who may or may nor be military or ex-military and doesn’t like new Captain America.’ On Sam’s tablet, propped up against Bucky’s pepper mill, Rhodey’s wearied face takes on new layers of frustration. ‘Hell of a way to go for not a lot.’

Sam shrugs. ‘The drive wasn’t too bad. Scenic.’

Rhodey snorts. ‘Yeah, that makes it really worth it.’

Concentrating on the road snaking between the banks of rocks, the roll of soft hills and green trees before navigating through the city again at least meant that Sam had had little time to think. Mind drifting at times while his body went through the automatic motions but never drifting too far. 

He still has Bucky’s sunglasses in his jacket pocket. 

‘I’m guessing none of the guys in custody handily answer to Craig?’

Rhodes shakes his head. ‘They don’t. None of the bodies in the morgue, either. But at least it’s something we can poke the guys in Rikers with, see if it gets a rise out of one of them.’ A pause. ‘This is a mess, Sam.’

Sam nods, tired. ‘I hear that, man.’

Rhodes’ eyes drift away for a moment. ‘That, uh, that other matter we talked about…’

‘Yeah?’

‘I got Tony’s files together, as much as was still around. I didn’t tell Pepper why, but she was happy to let me have them.’

Sam nods, feels something both tightening and loosening at the same time. 

‘Most of it is still hard copies. Torres will be stopping by to deliver it in person. I didn’t tell him, either,’ Rhodes adds. ‘You, uh, you’re still at Barnes’ place?’

Sam nods.

Leaning against the breakfast bar, watching the late afternoon sun sending long shadows crawling across the floor, the jewel-coloured throw on the pull-out sofa glowing in the warmth.

Rhodes leans a little closer to the camera, dark eyes narrowing as though that will help him read Sam across the distance. ‘How you holding up?’

‘I…’ Sam runs a hand over his head, scrubs at the back of his scalp. ‘Feeling kinda stretched thin,’ he admits. Somehow, under Rhodes’ steady regard it is not a difficult admission to make. The other man nods, solemn.

‘How’s Barnes?’

‘Kinda freaked out,’ Sam says, honestly.

Rhodes nods, eyes drifting beyond Sam and then back again. ‘He around?’

‘One of the neighbours needs their bathroom fan re-wiring, so…’ 

Natasha had always said that the best lies were just a version of the truth. Easier to remember, less likely to trip yourself up. It was advice that had come in handy, those years they had spent in each other’s pockets and God but he misses her-

A gleam of amusement warms the colonel’s stern features. ‘What, is he like the honorary janitor or something?’

Sam manages a wry smile. ‘Or something. I think it’s a pre-War thing, it’s like he can’t see a bust lightbulb or blown fuse without having to stop and mend it.’

The decking on Sarah’s porch that has been sanded down and re-sealed, the walls that have been painted, the locks and hinges that have been oiled, the once-stuck sash-windows that now open and close easily on their runners-

A twist across Rhodes’ face that might almost be fond. ‘That’s unexpectedly charming.’

‘Yeah. He probably helps little old ladies across the street when no-one’s looking.’

This is met with another snort. ‘In New York? The little old ladies would probably shiv him.’

Sam feels his own face crease into laughter and it feels both a relief and weirdly alien, like this is something that he’s already forgotten how to do.

After the call ends, Sam stays leaning against the breakfast bar, staring at the tablet’s now blank screen.

‘Rhodes isn’t stupid,’ Sam tells the Barnes-shaped void in the apartment. ‘Won’t be too long before he figures out you’ve gone.’

‘Sergeant Barnes will return before that becomes an issue,’ Griot supplies.

Sam glances at the glossy black slab with its gently pulsing blue light. ‘You reckon so, huh? Know something I don’t?’

‘Sergeant Barnes is also not stupid. Once his emotions are not clouding his judgement, he will realise that the safety that he wishes to ensure is more likely if you work together rather than apart.’

‘He isn’t a threat,’ Sam says, the weariness of repetition pulling at him like a stone.

‘Very probably not,’ Griot agrees. ‘But that is not how Sergeant Barnes sees it.’

Which, Sam thinks, in the end is the only view that really matters.

The contents of the fridge include plenty of fresh food and what even, to Sam’s expert eye, look like the ingredients for jambalaya and feels a twist around his heart. Bucky had fit so easily into life down in Delacroix. So okay, maybe it’s just an inoffensive bell pepper and some shrimp but the fact that Bucky is trying to bring a little of Delacroix back here with him does something to Sam. He brushes an impatient hand across eyes that are inexplicably wet, closes the fridge. Doesn’t really feel much up to cooking, anyhow, so orders takeout from the Lebanese place two blocks over that Bucky swears has the best baba ghanoush in Brooklyn and maybe he isn’t wrong. It is pretty good.

Sam has showered by the time the food arrives and he stares at it glumly, realising only when the boxes are all laid out that he’s ordered the same amount as always, including the extra extra to account for a super-soldier’s metabolism. He’ll be living off it for a week, along with the pho and the stuff in Bucky’s fridge.

Still, he is pretty hungry, grabs a beer and sets about making a dent in it, trying to enjoy the fact that for once there’s no-one trying to steal one of his kibbeh shamiyas.

He’s made pretty good inroads when the entry-phone buzzes. Sam hovers for a moment, then answers it cautiously.

‘Hey, uh, Sergeant Barnes?’

Sam feels himself relax at the familiar, upbeat voice. ‘Joaquín, it’s Sam.’

‘Oh, hey, hi! Uh, I have some files from Colonel Rhodes?’

Sam buzzes him up, has managed to dredge up a smile by the time Torres makes the front door, bringing with him his usual level of cheeriness that feels a lot to Sam right now.

The young man clutches a cardboard box as though his life depended on it, beaming happily and looking around with undisguised interest. ‘I’ve never been here before,’ he tells Sam, which feels like an unnecessary statement.

‘Buck’s not exactly big on entertaining,’ Sam says.

Torres nods, places the box on the coffee table with care. ‘The colonel told me to deliver this in person. Guess it must be pretty important.’

Sam huffs out a laugh. ‘I can see why you don’t do intelligence work: that wasn’t exactly subtle.’

His cheek redden, bashfulness pulling at his mouth and eyes. He looks ridiculously young. ‘Yeah,’ he admits, scratching the back of his neck. ‘Just curious, is all. I mean, I carried that all the way from DC.’

Sam’s lips curl faintly. ‘Just a bunch of stuff on an old SHIELD project - nothing exciting.’

Torres nods, continues his assessment of Bucky’s apartment. ‘Y’know, this is a lot cosier than I’d imagined? I thought it would be, I dunno, lots of chrome and black leather. Maybe one of those glass-brick walls.

The wins a genuine laugh laced with fond indulgence. ‘What, like a Miami Vice kingpin?’

The pleasant face brightens further, dark eyes shining. ‘My Yaya loved that show.’

‘Your-’ Sam closes his eyes. Nope. Not going there. He feels old enough as it is. 

‘Hey, a proper record player!’ Torres exclaims happily, ambling over to explore the neat piles of vinyl. ‘I knew he’d have one of those!’

Sam jerks his thumb over his shoulder at the prodigious amount of food still laid out on the kitchen counters. ‘You want something to eat? There’s a tonne left over.’

There’s a hesitation that isn’t just about Torres’ eyes resting longingly on the spread. ‘I… I gotta get back. Thanks, though. That all looks real good.’

‘You should take some with you. C’mon, have a beer at least.’

Feet shuffle while he plunges his hands deep into his jacket pockets. ‘Okay, yeah.’

While Torres takes a long pull from his beer, Sam watches him appraisingly, busies himself with the array of take-out boxes.

‘Everything okay?’ He keeps his tone light. ‘Long way to come just to turn around and head straight back.’

One thumbnail scrapes at the corner of the label on the beer bottle. ‘Yeah, it’s all good.’ Silence. ‘It’s just…’

Sam waits.

‘Just before I left the colonel was really getting into it with that asshole major.’

A snort. ‘Gonna have to narrow that one down, man.’

Torres grins and then it fades. ‘Major Evans.’ Flat.

‘Oh.’ Sam snags an empty container from one of the cupboards. ‘Any idea what it was about?’

Shoulders rise and fall. Torres takes a little more of his beer. ‘It sounded like a data breach. Some files that had gone missing.’ His dark eyes widen, dart anxiously to the box sitting quietly on the coffee table. 

Sam smiles wryly, ‘Nothin’ to do with that, I can promise you.’ It isn’t, technically, a lie.

And he sees the young man’s shoulders relax incrementally. Sam starts filling the plastic box with rice, aromatic minced lamb with tomato and herbs, some of the baba ghanoush.

Torres sniffs appreciatively and then his gaze lands on Bucky’s phone and the kimoyo beads. He frowns, looks around the apartment as though only now noticing that its owner isn’t there. ‘Is, uh, is Sergeant Barnes okay?’

Shit, Sam thinks. He keeps his face neutral. ‘Sure he is. Why?’

Torres stares at the phone again, bites his lip. ‘Nothing, it’s just- We play  Scrabble online and he still hasn’t taken his turn. He’s usually really fast.’

Sam stops, a spoon hovering in mid-air. ‘You- You play Scrabble. Online. With Bucky.’

‘Yeah.’ 

‘How long has that been going on?’ Sam demands, with a touch more petulance than he really wanted to hear in his own voice.

‘Uh…’ His eyes screw up in thought. ‘Six months, maybe? Or a bit longer.’ And then he turns rueful again. ‘He’s really good. I’ve only won, like, five times and I’m pretty sure he let me win at least twice.’

Tomato sauce slides off the spoon, splattering on the counter. Sam blinks slowly at Torres, too many questions warring for dominance. ‘He’s, uh… He’s helping out one of the neighbours,’ Sam says eventually.

‘Oh,’ Torres nods wisely and seems genuinely relieved. ‘Well, tell him I said, Hi, and if he, y’know, wants to forfeit the game or something…’

‘Nuh-uh, hell no.’ Sam shakes his head. ‘You wanna trash talk the Bionic Man, you do it yourself to his face.’

Torres grins. ‘It was worth a try.’

Bucky would probably love it if he did, Sam thinks. Be full of pride about how far the kid’s come while still giving him a whole lot of staring problem.

Sam presses the filled-to-capacity box into Torres’ hands, along with some warm pitta breads wrapped in aluminium foil. 

The apartment feels quiet, empty after he’s gone. Sam wants to tear straight into the files but makes himself clean up first, stash away the leftovers. He snags another beer, settles himself on the couch and breaks the seals on the box.

A few files, a sheaf of yellowing papers that have newer annotations in Tony’s spiky scrawl. A USB stick. Sam gets his laptop, opens up the folders and finds a series of impenetrable schematics and an .mp4 file that is, bafflingly, endearingly, Tony locked in a lip-synch battle with Happy Hogan. An old Aerosmith song, naturally. Sam watches it, fondness pulling at his lips and a pained weight pulling at his heart, tightening his throat.

He watches the video to the end. He should tell Rhodey about it. 

Sam sets the laptop aside, pulls out the files and the papers. Densely printed and redacted in places. Some of the loose papers date back to the war, to technology older still discovered in some chateau as the Allies advanced through France. Creepy, life-sized automata from what Sam can make out and finds himself shuddering at the thought.

The small font, faded in places, makes his eyes hurt. Sam switches on the standing lamp by the couch, angles the papers under the circle of warm, bright light.

‘If you wish, I can scan the pages,’ Griot offers, his voice low and sympathetically helpful, as though mindful of Sam’s intent concentration. ‘I could cross-reference any names. Perhaps upload the information to one of your Redwing drones for ease of access.’

Sam stares at Griot’s pulsing blue light. ‘Redwing, huh?’

‘If it would help.’

He lets out a steady breath. ‘Yeah, okay. You need me to get them?’

‘There is no need. I can interface with them as they are.’

Which isn’t an unsettling thought at all. Sam shifts on the couch.

‘But if you place White Wolf’s kimoyo beads on the table, I can facilitate the scan.’

The beads are as smooth and cool as Bucky’s vibranium arm, just as sleek and with that same faint electromagnetic hum. Sam dutifully places them on the table and as he finishes with each page he places it face up. The beads cast a blue light, scanning in each one.

Sam reads on. 

Theoretical uses for the new tech. Prototypes that had limited function and failed early on. A memo raising the possibility of putting it all in the hands of Howard Stark, an idea that was quashed when he was accused of treason and hauled in front of a Congressional hearing in ’46. The whole idea pretty dormant until the late 90s when SHIELD’s scientific wing recruited the services of a scientist from CalTech who had developed the original prototypes and schematics into something far more advanced, into the concept of a Life Model Decoy-

‘Captain.’

Sam starts, realises that Griot has been attempting to catch his attention for some moments. ‘What?’

‘This man, Doctor Holden Radcliffe. His name was in the background checks I ran on Doctors Gupta and Petersen. At different points they were both his research students.’

Sam stares at the row of plants on Bucky’s windowsill. ‘So, that’s how they know about LMDs. Where’s Radcliffe now?’

There’s a pause. The blue light flickers while Griot probably hacks into the DHS or something. ‘He died six years ago. It was a brain aneurism.’

Sam nods. Of course. Nothing would be so straightforward. But it’s something.

At some point, Tony had added a note next to Radcliffe’s name: Lectured at MIT!!

Sam reads on. Robots that would be identical to the humans they were modelled on. Autonomous, capable of logic, reason, emotion, but also-

He feels his stomach drop. 

Also of being controlled remotely by their owner, being their eyes and ears, an avatar for some distant keeper. All systems overridden. Weaponised. Used to eliminate targets. Used to kill.

Sam sits back on the couch, the pages drifting to the floor from fingers turned nerveless.

‘There were no signs of such capability or provisions in Sergeant Barnes’ scans,’ Griot says.

His eyes jerk open before he realises that he had closed them. The kimoyo beads have increased their reach, their steady blue light dancing across the sheet of paper at Sam’s feet.

‘But you can’t rule it out entirely,’ Sam says when he manages to unstick his tongue, working his mouth around the words. His voice comes out roughened. ‘Can you?’

A long sigh greets this. ‘Not entirely, no.’

Sam collects the files, the papers, puts them back in the box.

When he falls asleep that night, when he eventually does, it is fitful. And for the first time in a long time he dreams of wings torn from his back, of a steering wheel ripped from his hands, of empty blue eyes that remain unmoved, unfeeling, utterly beyond his reach no matter how hard Sam tries to find him. 

Chapter Text

Sam is on a video call to Rhodes before he heads out for his morning run. The colonel keeps even more anti-social hours than he does, Sam thinks, and stares, somewhat bemused, at how Rhodey still looks immaculate, even at stupid o’clock in the morning.

‘Radcliffe,’ Rhodes is saying, thoughtful. ‘Name kinda rings a bell.’

‘Tony made a note that he lectured at MIT at some point - maybe visiting lecturer, or something?’

‘Yeah, maybe. I’ll see what else we can find out about him. I’m trying to track down the security clearance files for Petersen and Gupta but they’ve gone AWOL, apparently.’

Sam nods. ‘Joaquín said some files had gone missing.’ Then he tilts his head. ‘Convenient.’

There’s a pause and Rhodes bites the inside of his lower lip. ‘Maybe. The intel they pulled from those simulations they had you and Barnes run has also gone. They are experts at this, so I guess they could have hacked the system, scrubbed the files themselves. What’s your next move?’

‘Gonna check out their home addresses, see if we can find anything that way.’

Rhodes’ face is a neutral mask. ‘I am not gonna ask how you got their addresses.’

Sam grins. ‘Ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies, man.’

A grunt of laughter. ‘That’s what I figured. On a different note, you got any idea how many guys named Craig are or have been in the US armed forces?’

‘Uh…’

‘Too many.’

Sam winces. ‘Sorry. Michelle Johnson said she’d call if she remembered anything else. Is there, uh, any news on her sister?’

‘Still in a coma,’ Rhodes states, flat. ‘It’s not looking good.’ He peers through the screen, dark eyes bright and sharp. ‘It wasn’t your fault, Sam.’

‘I know, I know, it’s just…’ He huffs a heavy breath down his nose. ‘We can always do better, right?’

Rhodes’ eyebrows crawl upwards. ‘You do any better, brother, I’m gonna have to get you a fucking halo.’

It sounds like something Bucky would say and Sam laughs. 

He makes up the bed before heading out for his run because Sam hates coming back to an unmade bed almost as much as Bucky does. And he is staying in the man’s apartment. He straightens the piles of books on the bedside table, eye caught by the cover of the topmost one with its illustration of a woman in a slinky blue dress. Sam opens it at random and reads a sentence halfway down the page:

Words to live by, Sam thinks soberly. He pulls on his running shoes, heads out the door.

The route Sam takes loops through Bucky’s neighbourhood. The ageing hippy proprietor of a vinyl record store stands in the doorway in the early-morning sunshine, tie-dyed T-shirt stretched over his paunch; his shop nestles between a hipster coffee shop and a Korean supermarket. Sam smiles to himself. It’s easy to imagine Bucky regularly patronising all three, given his love of vintage recordings, good coffee and kimchi. 

Sam settles into an easy rhythm, feet slap-slapping on the sidewalk. Still few people about at this hour but the streets are starting to wake up. He passes a handful of other runners, kids on their way to school, workers starting their commute to various far-flung points.

His steps take him up through the community gardens and he passes a bookshop that bears a strong resemblance to the doodles on the hand-drawn flyers in Bucky’s apartment. Sam pauses, staring at the bright awning and the chalkboard set up outside advertising stock with terrible puns and drawing attention to the wine-bar located within. He jogs on.

There’s a healthy sheen on his skin by the time he gets back to the apartment block, muscles warm and pleasantly worked, his mind quieter. He rattles the key in the lock, pushes the door open and then stops on the threshold, staring at the figure lounging in the kitchenette, taking up space with that insolent spread-out stance.

‘You’re back,’ Sam says.

Barnes nods. ‘Obviously.’ He pushes himself away from the cabinets behind him. ‘I made you one of those dumb smoothies you like.’ He slides the glass of dense, frothy green liquid across the counter towards Sam. ‘You know you’d be better off eating a banana or something after a run, right? Actual food.’

‘There’s more nutrients in the smoothie,’ Sam mutters. He kicks the door shut, crosses the space, keeps his eyes on Barnes as though the robot/android/whatever with the attitude and the staring problem might just disappear on him again as soon as he loses sight of him. His eyes are smarting. He blinks. Barnes is still there.

Sam sticks his chin out. ‘Why did you come back?’

‘Life Model Decoys…’ Barnes’ face is flattened out, his expression careful and controlled but there’s a banked-down ember deep behind his eyes. He looks punishingly weary. ‘They can be remote controlled, programming overridden. I figured if that happened it would be better for everyone if I was near someone who could just take me out immediately.’

‘Thinkin’ of takin’ you out right now,’ Sam growls. He grabs his smoothie and the fact that it’s been made just the way he likes it, with just enough sweetness to counterpoint the richer tastes is fantastically annoying. He frowns. ‘How do you know about the remote control stuff?’

Amusement glints across Barnes’ face, thawing out his gaze. ‘I know that you know that I know how to hack Redwing.’

Sam nods, swallowing down a mouthful of velvety green goodness. ‘Griot set me up real good with that one, huh?’

‘I took it as read that you were complicit in that arrangement, Captain,’ Griot interposes calmly. ‘If I was mistaken, please accept my apologies.’

‘Mm,’ Sam says, non-committal and not wholly believing in the contrition of an advanced AI. He eyeballs Barnes. ‘Where the hell you been, anyhow? And please don’t tell me you’ve been holed up in an old HYDRA base under a slaughterhouse in Hell’s Kitchen.’

‘That-’ Barnes blinks. ‘That’s weirdly specific.’

‘Where were you?’ His voice takes on a slightly shrill note; visions of water dripping down concrete walls and lots of chains fill Sam’s mind, unhelpful and unsettling.

Barnes is still musing. ‘Is there an old HYDRA base in Hell’s Kitchen?’

‘Oh my- Will you let that go!’

Barnes’ lips twitch minutely and his forehead creases. ‘There’re these things called motels, Sam, you might have heard of ‘em? Take cash and everything.’

Sam rolls his eyes. ‘Yeah, yeah, okay.’ He runs his gaze over Barnes, takes in the faint network of lines around his eyes that seem only fractionally deeper than usual, the obviously clean clothes and the general sense that he hasn’t slept in a ditch or someplace worse and the intense relief of it feels like a pain. Sam slaps the almost empty glass down on the counter, takes the few steps forward that separate them and wraps his arms around Barnes’ rigidly upright frame. 

When it’s a quick embrace that’s little more than the mutual slinging of arms around shoulders, Bucky makes no complaint; when it’s a more meaningful thing, when Sam holds him deliberately Bucky will make huffing, grumbly noises of protestation before inevitably melting, hooking his chin over Sam’s shoulder and letting the simplicity of touch sweep through him. 

This is neither of those. Sam’s arms tighten and Barnes remains locked into his coiled, controlled pose, his arms stubbornly at his sides. He steps back and Sam has no choice but to let him go.

‘Don’t- Don’t do that.’

Sam tilts his head. ‘Why not?’

He sees the shudder through Barnes’ chest, the way the breath catches somewhere deep. A rim of bright blue around wide pupils and his face is strained. 

‘For the last time: I am not him! I’m a computer programme, Sam, I’m ones and zeros on a chip wired into a polymer body. I’m not a person, I’m what HYDRA spent seventy years trying to turn Bucky Barnes into - I’m a thing. And I’m not replacement Bucky anymore than he’s just replacement Steve.’

Sam feels that one kick in the centre of his stomach, a dull reverberation like a cracked bell. ‘You were never replacement Steve!’ Even to his own ears it sounds like too much of a protest. Barnes’ face has taken on that pitying, sceptical look again.

‘Really? You never wanted me to like the same things and have the same opinions so it would just be like old times?’

‘I-’

Just because Sam likes to share the things that mean something to him doesn’t mean that he wants everyone to react in the same way. He doesn’t. Does he?

‘Okay, so maybe I use the same ins on conversations but that’s what most people do. It’s called finding common ground. Anyhow, that was a long time ago, we’ve come a helluva long way since then.’

A hand waves, impatient. ‘Fine. You two are tight now. Whatever.’ Barnes’ unrelenting blue glare is fixed on him. ‘My point is, if you can’t get Bucky back you can’t just replace him with me and then pretend that nothing’s happened because you think you can’t do this alone.’

‘What the hell’s that supposed to mean?’

Lips press together; the broad shoulders lower. ‘Nothing. Forget it.’

‘No,’ Sam says, and he feels a cloying sweep of anger rage in his throat, under his skin. Because who the hell does Bucky Barnes, any Goddamn version of Bucky Barnes, think he is telling Sam how he thinks and feels? ‘No, man, you suddenly got so much to say, you come out and say it.’

Barnes rears back a fraction and his face smooths into that studiedly neutral expression that Sam really hates because if there’s one thing that he’s come to rely on, even subconsciously, is that as sure as night follows day, Bucky Barnes’ open, expressive face always says more than his words ever will. He lets out a long breath but that closed-off expression behind his eyes remains. 

‘Okay,’ Barnes says, soft, like this is something he doesn’t really want to do but now that it’s started he’ll see it through to the end. 

Which, Sam thinks with something close to rising hysteria, pretty much describes their lives on any given day.

‘I can’t imagine what it’s like to carry the shield. I mean, really carry it, not just pick it up and flash it around. Anyone can do that.’ Grimness etches across his face, lines deepening and he looks old and so very, very tired. ‘Hell, I did that once and the consequences were pretty disastrous. But carrying it- It’s a lot.’

Sam watches him, thinks of all the things, the hurt and the accusations they had flung at each other, that all seem so long ago now. ‘You’re the one who’s always telling me I don’t have to do it alone.’ His words sound like they’ve crawled across sandpaper on the way out.

One corner of Barnes’ mouth quirks, a softer gleam rounding his clear eyes. ‘And you don’t. You have people: Rhodes and Torres. Bucky.’ He pauses and for a moment fondness and wearied exasperation wars with an old, aching grief. ‘Steve had a whole team, right back to the beginning. Howard, Peggy, the Howlies. Bucky. The spotlight was always on him but he was never on his own. But when it came to the shield, to all that it stands for, all that it means, he still carried that alone. Like you do. I- Bucky can stand beside you but he’s not the one carrying the shield. You are. And you can’t tell me you couldn’t do that just because he’s not here.’ Barnes’ chin lifts, his spine somehow even straighter than it was before. ‘You’re Captain America. More than that: you’re Sam fucking Wilson. You’ll still be that even if you’re the only one left standing on a Goddamn battlefield.’

And the emptiness of that had broken Steve in the end, Sam thinks and it’s a horribly hollow realisation. Steve had gone for far too long pretending that he was fine, that he didn’t really need people, that he could stand all on his own - until he couldn’t. But Sam isn’t Steve.

‘Cool speech,’ he says, with more calm than he really feels. ‘It ever occurred to you that maybe I’m actually just glad to have your own dumb robot ass back here?’

Barnes’ mouth opens, snaps shut and Sam watches as the thought penetrates incrementally. Sam nods.

‘Yeah, that’s what I thought. I can practically see the cogs jamming with that one.’ 

They look at each other. Sam feels some sense of triumph, an argument that, maybe, possibly, has finally got through and then:

‘Ten words,’ Barnes says.

Sam shakes his head. ‘What?’

‘All it took was ten words to trigger the Winter Soldier, make him ready to comply.’ His face does something complicated, bitter pain twisting his mouth. ‘I mean, after all the torture and drugging and conditioning and everything else. Two years away from HYDRA and all Zemo had to do was say those damn words and that was it. Bucky Barnes gone. And unlike me he’s not an actual robot. Say the words, press a button, flick a switch and you don’t know what I’ll do. Neither do I. You can’t trust me and you shouldn’t.’

Sam feels a throb behind his eyes, as though he’s been bringing his head into violent and repeated contact with a brick wall. But it shakes loose something else. ‘I said something along those lines to Steve, once. About you. Well, y’know, Bucky. Figured back then chasing a ghost was kind of a lost cause and the best we could hope for was damage control.’

‘But you still did it,’ Barnes says and his voice holds an unexpected gentleness. 

Sam nods. ‘Yeah. At first for Steve; and what with me being a brand-new almost-Avenger it seemed like a good idea not to have the Winter Soldier running around loose. Kept waiting to find the trail of dead bodies and destruction.’ He smiles, wry. ‘Never did find that.’ Barnes watches him carefully. Sam moistens his lips, says the thing that he has never said out loud, he realises; not to Bucky, anyway. ‘It stopped being about Steve after a while. Even stopped being about the Winter Soldier. I mean, I was still pretty wary but in the end it became about you. I didn’t know you then but I wanted to find you for your sake. I’ve never regretted that. Not once. I’m not giving up, no matter what, not on him and not on you.’

The words hang heavy. Barnes’ head bows, a ripple across his shoulders. His chest rises and falls to a slightly quicker beat. He looks up again and when he speaks there’s still a fragile softness to his voice.

‘Sam. You might not get Bucky back at all. You know that, right?’

Sam works his jaw, the tension in it spearing up into his head. ‘Can’t see anyone going to all this trouble just to kill him.’ 

He tells himself that, over and over. He might even start believing it.

‘That’s not what I mean and you know it’s not.’

Sam does but he still makes him say it. ‘Do I?’

Barnes has a full-body flinch of exasperation. ‘Yeah, you do. They took Bucky Barnes, not you. They took the ex-Winter Soldier and it might not be so much with the “ex” part when we find him again.’

The simmering anger he’d felt in Rhodes’ office flares under his skin again and Sam feels his chest tighten. He keeps his voice level. ‘I’m telling you what I told Rhodes: if that happens I’ll look after Bucky until Shuri can do what she does. And if she can’t, I’ll still look after him. And that’s it. End of story.’

It is, perhaps, not the grown-up or dignified reaction but Sam turns and all but stomps out of the room, into the bedroom and slams the door. Slams the door to the bathroom too for good measure and finally stands under the shower until his skin aches with the heat.

Calmer when he steps back into the open space of the kitchen-come-living room. Barnes has been keeping himself occupied with making breakfast and he pauses in the middle of turning rashers of bacon, inspects Sam. Whatever he sees in Sam’s face has him nodding once to himself and continuing. Sam steps behind him, starts on the coffee.

‘It won’t work,’ Barnes says, calm and quiet.

‘What?’

‘What you told Rhodey you’d do if… It won’t work.’

Sam’s hands still. ‘That’s none of your business.’

He hears a long controlled sigh; the warmer drawer opens and closes. 

‘You can’t have it both ways,’ Barnes says.

Sam abandons the coffee-maker and turns around. Barnes leans against the counter, mismatched arms folded across his chest. The tilt of his chin is stubborn, defiant, a hint of challenge in his eyes. It’s the same look as that famous photograph of Sergeant Barnes of the 107th, the one reproduced in every history textbook in America. Sam meets the look and waits.

‘According to you I’m him,’ Barnes continues, ‘but only when it suits you. Lemme tell you: if whoever this is that has him has turned him back into the Winter Soldier-’

‘The trigger words are gone-’

‘-If they’ve done it, if he’s hurt someone again, he’d sooner be dead. The only thing he’d want you to do is put a bullet through his brain. What’s left of it.’

Cold slinks down Sam’s spine. ‘You can’t-’

The blue eyes sharpen, gaze flattening out. ‘I have his thoughts, remember? Everything he’s thought or felt, I have that. I think it. I feel it. And if he’s the Winter Soldier again, I’ll kill him myself. And you can’t come to me after that and get me to take his place. We do this mission, however it plays out, afterwards I’m gone.’

The cold spreads through Sam’s numb fingers, creep up his cheeks, piercing through his skull into those dark recesses in his brain where fear lurks. ‘So, this goes sideways you expecting me to lose my best friend twice over?’

Barnes shrugs with an attempted nonchalance that Sam doesn’t buy. ‘Nothing you haven’t done before.’

‘Who says I want to do it again?’ Because he can’t, not again. Maybe if there hadn’t been so many Goddamn losses he wouldn’t be hanging on here so hard. Or maybe he would. Bucky’s damn well worth hanging on to, after all.

‘I’m not your best friend, Sam,’ Barnes says and there’s something achingly delicate in the scratch in his voice, in the sudden thinness of it.

Sam finds his own voice tight, pushes the words up past the vice around his throat and the awful pressure behind his eyes. ‘Right now, you’re all I’ve got. And that ain’t nothing. You’re not nothing. You’re not a thing.’

Barnes’ jaw bunches, his gaze skittering wildly around the kitchen, resting on nothing and all the stubborn defiance has turned inward, as though it’s taking everything he has not to break. 

Sam works his tongue over parched lips. ‘Tell me something: why do you think it would be so easy for anyone to turn Bucky back into that?’

Barnes’ throat bobs. ‘They did it before.’ It’s a whisper.

‘I know, and it took them years. It’s been, like, a week. Even if- even if that is what someone’s trying, why do you think it’s only gonna take a few days?’

Something horrible works its way across Barnes’ face. ‘I… I let them…’

‘Jesus fucking Christ, Bucky…’ Sam’s stomach lurches, the cold in his body the hollow centre of a vortex of pain and grief and a sudden, unreasoning anger. ‘You said it yourself, you fought, you tried to escape.’

The skittering gaze fixes on the ground. ‘Could’ve tried harder-’

‘No, you couldn’t! No-one could!’ Sam crowds into Barnes’ space, gets one hand on the back of Barnes’ neck, calloused fingers catching on his hair and all but shakes him. It isn’t Barnes or Bucky - fuck, whoever -  he’s angry with: he’s just angry with the legion of nameless, faceless people who had inflicted so much unimaginable suffering. But Sam’s anger is an indulgence, his own problem to deal with, and Barnes doesn’t need that from him now. Sam swallows it down, feels it stick behind all the other pained and painful things in his throat. 

‘Fuck, I still don’t know half of what happened to you but if I’d gone through the parts I do know, I couldn’t have fought that off. I couldn’t. Steve couldn’t have. Shit, I don’t think Thor could have and he is an actual god. No-one could have done more than you did to fight it. Everyone would have broken, everyone.’

The bowed head finally raises and Sam gets a glimpse of wet, red-rimmed eyes that shimmer silver. He pulls Barnes into his arms again, feels feverish heat radiating off him and keeps the embrace tight. ‘But not everyone could have scraped themselves back together afterwards and still be- Still be one of the best people I’ve ever known. You did that. And you did it all on your own.’

A wounded, choked sound. Barnes buries his face in the curve of Sam’s neck and he shakes, hitching breaths that catch in his throat, heave at his chest. Sam holds on while his friend shakes in his arms, wrestling with those dark, destructive torments one more time. He waits until the trembling stops and the bitten-back sobs subside into soggy sniffs. Sam runs a soothing hand down the back of Barnes’ sleek dark head until he feels the other man’s chin hook over his shoulder, breath huffing against his tear-damp neck.

‘You said Bucky knows I’m coming for him,’ Sam says. Some of the hollowed-out coldness has been replaced by a kernel of warmth. Barnes has wrapped his arms around Sam, he realises and that solid warm embrace is holding Sam up. Just like always. ‘I know that wherever he is, whatever is happening to him, he’ll fight it with everything he has. And when we find him, I’m not gonna let anyone hurt him. Not even you.’

They still hold onto each other. 

‘It’s like that, huh?’ Barnes’ voice sounds thick, still a little shaky.

Sam nods against Barnes’ shoulder. ‘Yeah. It’s like that.’

Warmth from Barnes’ large, flat palm rubbing between Sam’s shoulder-blades. 

‘Okay,’ Barnes says. ‘Well, we both know where we stand.’

Breakfast is a quiet affair but not unpleasantly so. Something of an equilibrium seems to have been established and while Sam is under no illusions that there might not be some dark undertow ready to submerge them at any given second, he is aware of a general lightening of the atmosphere, of how the carved-in lines in Barnes’ face have eased, giving him more the expression that Sam has become accustomed to. Sam himself feels simultaneously wrung out and more grounded

Once the breakfast things are cleared away, Sam watches as Barnes tidies around his sparse apartment and then spends a baffling, endearing, length of time fussing over his row of houseplants, pulling off withered leaves, rotating them so each side gets their quota of sunshine and, Sam is certain, murmuring to them in Xhosa. He even retrieves a small beaten copper watering-can that apparently exists for the sole purpose of watering the houseplants.

‘Torres is worried about you,’ Sam blurts out, the words bubbling up without his say so.

Barnes squints at him over his shoulder, bemused.

Sam clears his throat. ‘He, uh… Your Scrabble game. You have’t made a move, he thinks maybe you want to forfeit.’

Humour, sharp, gleams in Barnes’ blue eyes. ‘Oh, he does, does he?’ He dumps the watering-can on the counter with a muted clang, grabs his phone. ‘Right…’ He taps at the screen, deposits it back with an imperious flourish. ‘See how he likes that: triple-word score and everything.’

Sam grins. ‘You could let him win, y’know.’

A divot appears between his brows. ‘He doesn’t need me to let him win, the kid does just fine on his own.’ He sounds affronted - whether on his own behalf or Torres’, Sam isn’t sure - but the easy affection evident in Barnes’ gruff tone and glinting eyes takes up a warm, comforting space in Sam’s body.

‘Let him win, Jeez…’ Barnes continues muttering under his breath. Wipes down the leaves of his sansevieria.

Sam watches him with a fondness that isn’t just to do with the Bucky-ness of him. Sam's eyes alight on the pile of flyers and gives into curiosity. ‘You planning on buying a bookshop?’

‘Huh? Oh…’ A shy smile tugs at his lips, pink dusting the high points of his cheeks. ‘Nah, I, uh… It’s a local place, got hit pretty bad after the Blip. The owner’s pretty close to losing the lease but there’s a community crowdsourcing thing going on, see if we can turn it  around… Don’t know if it will help. I ended up doing some advertising stuff, so…’

Sam bites back a delighted smile. ‘Just ended up, huh?’

The pink deepens to a reddish hue. ‘Yeah.’ Defensive, shoulders hunching a fraction.

Sam’s lips push together. ‘Sarah finds out she’ll have you doing all the promo materials for Wilson Family Seafood. For free.’

The high line of his shoulders bleeds out into something more relaxed and there’s a warmth in Barnes’ face. ‘Think she can do a lot better than anything I have to offer.’

Sam feels a twist around his heart. ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he says gently. ‘I think you’d do just fine.’

Barnes had already gone through Kate Gupta’s apartment the day before and found nothing.

‘Think she ate and slept there and probably not much of either,’ Barnes had told him.

Which sounds like someone Sam knows, but he keeps that to himself and just gives Barnes the side-eye instead. Which is, he has to admit, not entirely fair these days: Bucky’s place is still borderline minimalist but he’s made real efforts at making it a home, somewhere that doesn’t just feel like a safe house he’ll have bolted from the next time Sam knocks on his door. 

Cal Petersen’s apartment yields pretty much the same level of non-information as Gupta’s apparently had. It’s tidy enough but has the air of a transitory space and screams tragic bachelor living in its almost wilfully mismatched furniture and drab furnishings. They systematically search each cupboard and drawer. Sam even pokes about the fridge and finds an expired carton of milk, some shrivelled vegetables and a bag of salad that is turning to slime. He eyes them thoughtfully.

‘Think he’s just absent minded or was he expecting to come back here and then didn’t?’

Barnes tilts his head, thoughtful. ‘Could go either way, I guess.’ He glances around the apartment. ‘But figure I’ll put my money on him thinking he’d be back here.’

‘Yeah,’ Sam nods. ‘Me too.’ He closes the fridge door, examines the strip of photo-booth snaps held in place by a magnet. Cal Petersen and Kate Gupta: him looking uncertain and tolerant, her grinning goofily at the camera. 

‘Think they’re an item?’ Sam jerks his head towards the photos.

Barnes studies them. ‘Could be. Maybe they’re, uh, ride-or-dies. That’s a thing now, isn’t it?’

Sam suppresses a smile. ‘Yeah. It’s a thing. That can also be just for friends, though.’

‘Huh.’ Barnes nods, philosophical. He stalks into the living room, flops down on the couch, arms spread along the back, long legs stretched out, taking up all of the available space.

‘Make yourself at home, why don’t you,’ Sam says, following him, and then perches in a narrow armchair that feels like it’s lost most of its stuffing somewhere along the line. ‘I’d like to take a look at that lab of theirs.’ Puts his eyebrows up. ‘Maybe tonight?’

‘Hm.’ Barnes sits forward, elbows on his knees. ‘Might attract less attention in daytime. There’s a department meeting this afternoon, so most of the offices will be empty but there’ll still be a handful of people about. Easier to blend in.’

Sam is not convinced that, despite his deeply nerdy inclinations, any version of Bucky Barnes would blend in as a geeky scientist, ever, but whatever. Maybe he can pass himself off as a supercool research student. Some of them have to be cool. Maybe.

‘How the hell you know about the department meeting schedules?’

Barnes looks pitying again.

‘As I keep telling you, Captain, the system is distressingly easy to hack,’ Griot’s voice, slightly muffled, rises out of the pocket of Barnes’ leather jacket.

Sam rolls his eyes. ‘Right. And just how are we supposed to walk in there in the middle of the day? I know the security isn’t up to much but it’s still there.’

Barnes grins.

‘I don’t believe this,’ Sam says faintly. He looks up and down the quiet side-street and back at the flimsy parking barrier across the dark mouth of the garage. The one that is so easy to simply step around. ‘They’ve got a security guard on reception, you need a keycard to open the doors and access the elevator, but anyone can walk into the garage off the street and get on the elevator?’

‘Without a keycard,’ Barnes finishes. ‘Feeling better now you said it out loud?’

‘Not really.’

Sam stares again at the red-and-white striped pole and contemplates Griot’s ongoing complaints about the security arrangements which are, Sam has to admit, wholly inadequate.

‘You coming?’ Barnes doesn’t bother waiting for a reply, slinks around the barrier and his dark form is swallowed up by the gloom of the underground parking lot, all grey concrete and musty air laden with the smell of gasoline and rubber.

Sam hovers for a moment on the sidewalk, casts furtive looks up and down the street before deciding that there’s no-one around to give a shit about what they’re up to and follows Barnes into the garage, onto the elevator, up to the third floor where they’re spat out onto an institutional corridor of prefabricated walls painted a dingy white and thin grey carpet. Wherever the money goes, it isn’t on interior decorating, Sam thinks. 

Barnes steers them along corridors and through fire-doors, passing few people, none of whom pay them any attention at all (maybe Barnes had a point about blending in, but Sam would sooner have his fingernails torn out than admit it) until they reach an innocuous door with a small nameplate to the side bearing the names of Petersen and Gupta.

This door has a card reader and before Sam can comment on that, Barnes has pulled out one of his kimoyo beads. The blue light scans across the surface, holds, and the door opens with a faint click.

Barnes looks over one shoulder, eyebrows raised.

Sam sighs. ‘Yeah, okay, I’m impressed.’

The lights flick on to reveal a well-appointed lab that is surprisingly spacious after the cramped, dreary corridors beyond. Complicated machinery and what look like various prototypes of assorted robotic components cover the surfaces of the large tables. Schematics pinned up on corkboards. A bank of computer monitors running the length of one wall, their screens either blank or lazily rotating the institution’s official screensaver. Tucked into the corner nearest the door is a stack of large plastic crates and a trolley.

‘Is this where you were?’ Sam asks and cringes slightly at the obviousness of his own question.

‘Yeah.’ Barnes jerks his head. ‘Office is through there.’

Two desks facing each other, one with methodically-stacked files, the other a mess of papers and lovingly-arranged animé figurines. A table in the corner with a coffee-maker, small fridge wedged in beneath. Sam inspects this one, too, finds yet more expired milk, bottled water, a stale sandwich with a post-it note stuck to it.

Kate's: do not touch! (I MEAN IT, CAL!!)

They make a circuit of the small space and then, without consultation, each takes a desk and begins a methodical inspection. Files upon files, class lists, lecture notes… Sam rubs at his eyes.

‘Whoever said being a university professor was glamorous?’

Barnes glances over at him, amusement shading his face. ‘Literally no-one.’

Sam mutters, shrugs out his shoulders. Barnes goes back to sifting through the papers he’s found in the desk, pausing every now and then with a rapt expression and an air of reluctance as he sets them down. Diagrams and equations, as far as Sam can make out. Under different circumstances, Barnes would probably be having the time of his nerdy life.

Silence except for rustling pages and the low whir of the air-conditioning. 

‘This might be something,’ Sam says. ‘Invoice for equipment delivered to a unit in an industrial park in the Bronx.’

‘Bronx, huh?’ Barnes eyebrows lift a fraction. ‘At least it isn’t Jersey.’

‘Man, you gotta get over that bias.’

‘I’m from Brooklyn,’ Barnes states, as though this is information that Sam might have somehow forgotten. ‘Can’t help it if we’re naturally just better than Jersey.’

Sam snorts, stands up. ‘No comment.’ He jerks his chin. ‘You find anything in that desk?’

‘Nah.’ Barnes puts the papers and files back where he found them, eases out of the stiff-backed swivel chair and follows Sam back out into the lab space. 

Sam stands, eyes sweeping over the tables while Barnes moves through, occasionally stopping to examine something or other more closely. Sam thinks about the goofy photos and the dorky post-it notes and the eager smiles and it doesn’t make sense.

‘How did a pair of geeks manage to overpower a super-soldier, anyhow?’

‘This probably helped,’ Barnes says, and there’s a distant dullness to his voice that prickles against the back of Sam’s neck. Sam pads across to the figure standing horribly still and painfully upright and looks at the object he’s holding in his hands. A braided metallic cord and at each end what look like short, stubby versions of Natasha’s taser batons.

‘What is that?’ Sam isn’t entirely sure he wants to know.

‘Stun-gun, after a fashion. Designed for use on enhanced people.’

The clinical, bitten-off words land like a stone in the pit of Sam’s stomach.  He doesn’t need to ask how Barnes knows that, it’s all there in the terrible bleakness of his tone. Barnes stares at the weapon in his hands and it looks delicate, nothing of its terrible function indicated in its form. 

‘Between this and a strong enough sedative…’ His throat bobs; he replaces the item back on the table with precise care. Barnes’ eyes lift and he stares across the room at the crates and the trolley. ‘The lifts here are big enough to hold one of those trollies. Straight down to the garage. Easy to get cargo in and out.’

Cargo. The scorching anger flares up again and for a moment Sam wants to give way to it, to let it flare up - except that this would be no cleansing fire, there would be nothing left in its wake except ash and despair and they would still have to go down this path of misery, wherever it leads.

‘Hey.’ A soft touch on Barnes’ arm. ‘Probably nothing else here for us.’

Barnes stares at him for a moment, hollowed-out eyes darkened in a too-tight face and then he nods, once, stalks towards the door. 

By the time they’ve reached the car again it’s Barnes who is examining Sam with critical eyes. ‘You should get something to eat before we do anything else.’ Off Sam’s incredulous look, Barnes puts his eyebrows up. ‘What? You didn’t eat much at breakfast. The last thing we need is you getting hungry - or hangry, that’s a thing and you get it-’

‘Do not.’

‘Do too and we don’t need you getting hangry halfway to the Bronx, as though going there wasn’t bad enough.’

Oh, so that’s how it is. Sam smirks slightly.

‘Pretty sure they got places to eat in the Bronx.’

Barnes’ face creases, scepticism written into every line. ‘Do they, though? Can we really be certain?’

Sam’s hands spread, palms up, reasonable. ‘C’mon, be nice: they’ve got the zoo, the botanical gardens, the Yankees-’

That wins the expected, explosive snort of derision. ‘The Yankees? Please. They can keep ‘em. Goddamn Yankees he says…’

Sam huffs out a breath of laughter. ‘Get in the car.’

‘Do you want me to drive?’

A cloudburst of images and very visceral memories. Bucky drives as though the rules of both the road and physics are tentatively helpful suggestions rather than enforceable laws. Sam shudders.

‘Nuh-uh, no way. You Tokyo drift at the best of times, man.’

The lines deepen into a near scowl. ‘We’ve never been to Tokyo.’

‘No, that’s-’ And this is what he gets for having a pain in the ass centenarian as a best friend. He blows a breath down his nose. ‘Never mind.’

Barnes has his arms folded on top of the car’s roof. ‘Y’know,’ he says conversationally, ‘in the first film the crew are stealing VCRs? VCRs. That’s how long the Fast have been Furious.’

He pulls open the door, slides into the passenger seat and leaves Sam staring at the space he had been inhabiting with baffled outrage.

Sam opens the driver-side door, lowers himself in with affronted dignity. ‘You,’ he says levelly when he’s seated, ‘are such an asshole.’

Barnes laughs. ‘Yeah, yeah. I want my sunglasses back, by the way. Vintage Wayfarers don’t come cheap.’

‘Griot ratted me out, huh?’

There’s a muffled sound of protest from Barnes’ pocket.

Barnes stares at Sam, shaking his head a fraction. ‘Please.’

Sam starts the engine just as Barnes’ phone chimes. Their route will take them up through Harlem and Barnes does have a point about eating. At least they’ll be passing plenty of places with some good soul food on the way. He’s about to say as much to Barnes when he notices the unnaturally tight grip the man has on his phone. Sam’s own fingers tighten reflexively on the steering wheel.

‘What?’ 

Eyes, wide and stricken, are raised to Sam’s.

‘Sarah.’

A jolt of fear. ‘Wait, what? What’s happened?’

‘No, I mean-’ Barnes’ face is pale except for the point of colour burning across his high cheekbones. ‘Sarah, she- she’s flying in today. She’s supposed to be staying with me.’

Sam feels prickly with sweat, squirms against it. ‘Man, don’t do that. I thought there was something wrong.’

‘There is something wrong!’ Barnes says wildly. ‘I said she could stay. With me. At the apartment.’

The scratch at the back of his mind. With the whole teeny tiny massive crumbling of Sam’s world, the arrival of his sister in New York had dropped off his radar altogether. ‘Yeah, okay, so it’ll be a bit of a squeeze and I don’t want to see you two makin’ heart-eyes at each other-’

‘Sam!’

Sam looks at him fully, at the panicked expression and the way his whole body is tensed. ‘What? What’s wrong?’

Barnes looks at him as though it’s Sam who is saying something incomprehensible and all but shrinks away, clenching into the curve of the seat. ‘Sarah can’t stay with me.’

Sam feels the frown build across his face. ‘Why not?’

‘Why- Because! Because all-all this!’ Barnes gestures at himself and he stares at Sam, pleading with him to understand.

‘Sarah is not giving up her course because you’re having an existential crisis,’ Sam tells him.

‘She doesn’t have to, I-I’ll book her into a hotel, a good one, but-but she can’t be at the apartment. Not with me. Not like this.’

Sam presses his lips together, not trusting himself to speak for a moment. ‘Okay,’ he says after a while, ‘okay. Fine. But I want it clear that I am agreeing to this to keep you happy, and not because I think you’re a danger. Honestly, I’d rather Sarah was staying at your place. I know she’d be safe there. With you,’ he adds, emphasising the words.

No man as tall and powerfully-built and downright cussed as Bucky Barnes should look as stripped-open and fragile as Barnes does when he looks at Sam in that moment. The ache in his summer-blue eyes is so visceral that Sam feels his own sting. He blinks hard, hands gripping the steering wheel until the skin stretches over his knuckles.

‘You wanna come with me to the airport?’ Sam has a feeling he already knows the answer and sees the dark head shake. ‘Okay. We’ll go get some food, then I’ll pick up Sarah and you sort out her hotel.’

Barnes nods. ‘What about the place in the Bronx?’ His voice sounds scratchy and worn down.

‘It’ll keep,’ Sam says and there’s a hardness to his voice that surprises even himself. He feels Barnes’ gaze on him and makes himself meet that painfully open look.

‘I could go-’

‘No!’

Barnes’ eyes widen. He blinks.

‘We do this together or we don’t do it at all, okay?’ Which is not, Sam would admit, an actual workable approach under the circumstances but he has a point to make. ‘Okay?’

‘Okay,’ Barnes squeaks.

‘You promise me?’

That wins a flash of outrage. ‘Whaddya want? Me to cross my heart and hope to die if I should ever tell a lie?’ The old rhyme is recited in an obnoxiously sing-song voice.

Sam eyeballs him, pinning the man in place. Barnes meets Sam’s glare with one that is disarmingly softer. ‘If I thought it would do any good, yeah,’ Sam says.

Barnes’ eyes drop to the light and dark fingers interlaced in his lap. ‘I promise I won’t do anything without you. And I won’t go anywhere,’ he continues, in response to the question the Sam hasn’t asked but that still hangs heavy on the air. ‘I’m tired of running.’

Sam feels all of his own lines smooth down, everything scaling back to a humming certainty that after everything - and it is an awful lot of everything - everyone has ended up where they were meant to be. Almost.

‘Good,’ he says, soft. ‘You don’t need to run.’ You never did, his brain supplies, but that time is long past and they’re here now and that’s all that matters. ‘Know any good places to eat in Harlem?’

‘Sylvia’s,’ Barnes says after a beat. ‘Best potato salad you’ve ever had.’

Sam’s eyebrows climb. ‘That a fact?’

Barnes smiles, wry and amused and apologetic. ‘Sorry. Best you’ve ever had outside of Louisiana.’

‘Damn right,’ Sam says and he knows what Barnes actually means is best outside of Sarah’s.

And that’s okay, too.

Sarah Wilson has never resented Bucky Barnes. Even during those lost years when Sam was chasing around the globe after someone who may as well have been a ghost she did not resent said ghost because she had, to be honest, more things to worry about than whatever insanity her thrill-seeking brother had got caught up in now. Sam had some things to work through and he would do them in his own time and in his own way.

Her husband had not been so philosophical, missing Sam’s presence at family get-togethers or even just having a beer while watching the game. 

‘The hell is it about these White boys that’s got Sam all tied up in knots anyhow?’ Drew had demanded and had taken himself to ask Sam.

Sarah had found him over an hour later sitting on the steps running up to their porch and his dark eyes had been shadowed and wet, lashes clumping together.

‘Jesus, Sarah,’ he’d said, voice shaking.

‘You get it, now?’ she had asked, even if what she was going on was her own brief view of unimaginable horror and a life that seemed past saving.

‘Damn near ready to help him go look,’ Drew had muttered and she’d put her arms around his broad, reassuring shoulders.

The reality of Bucky Barnes had been wholly unexpected: the disarming surprise of his charming smile; that sweet almost goofy introduction on the docks; his quiet careful presence in her house, his eyes anxious and earnest as though he were waiting to be sent away and the heartrending relief in his face when she had trusted him with her shopping list and sent him to the store instead.

Steve Rogers had been another matter, even if she had never actually met the man. He had called the house after the Snap or the Blip or whatever dumbass name people wanted to call the near-end of the world. 

Anyhow. 

He had called her on a crackling line, full of sorrow and self-recrimination about about what had happened and how much he wanted to tell her in person-

This isn’t about you is what she had wanted to scream at him but she had restrained herself enough just to tell him to stay away and he had. Later she would be more lenient. Sam and Bucky both had loved him so much, and they are so good, both of them, strong and caring and righteous in ways that Sarah would like to be but isn’t sure that she really is, so she had decided to give Steve Rogers the benefit of the doubt that he was respecting her wishes and not just taking the convenient out she had given him.

And between then and now Bucky Barnes has become part of the fabric of her life, someone who came down to that tiny community holding on by a thread made up of stubbornness and pride and a deep-rooted love and who had put in the work: had hauled the catch off the boats, the fallen trees off lawns, fixed busted engines, made the supply run to the community centre and the care home and-

Sat at her table and helped her boys with their homework, let them crawl up his strong body like he’s a climbing-frame, thrown himself between Sam and whoever’s firing at him.

He’s part of her life and over time he’s become part of her life regardless of all that hinterland and now he’s simply part of her life; and when she thinks about him it’s with a heady swirl of wanting that’s rooted in the domesticity of having him at her table and opens up into the need for having him in her arms and in her bed and letting both of them just love each other.

So when Sam collects her from the airport and then tells her about the last few days, she stares ahead and feels a rise of mild hysteria that she pushes back down because out of all the things that have happened this is not the strangest.

It’s one that hits hard, though, and it numbs her for a while to the extent that she’s so calm that when Sam asks if she’s okay, she says she is and he actually seems to believe her. 

The hotel Sam takes her to in Midtown is upmarket, elegant and expensive, a small flock of porters encircling the car when they pull up to hand her out of it, take her luggage, steer them through the doors to the reception desk. She’s beyond grateful that she’s wearing sleek trousers instead of mom jeans and that she’d allowed Shereene to go all out on her nails and hair, the sleek micro-braids carefully coiled around her head like a crown.

‘You’ll be okay?’ Sam had asked, again, peering anxiously into her face and she had nodded and smiled and told him again that she’s fine.

Now Sarah sits on the edge of the king bed with its snowy white linen and mounds of soft pillows. The room, Sam had told her with an attempt at cheer, is bigger than Bucky’s whole apartment and Sarah can believe it. It seems to be acres of pale carpet and discreet lighting, everything feeling understated and luxurious. It’s the place for a love affair, she thinks and her mind turns immediately to the new satin pyjama-shorts set in her suitcase. A silly indulgence, perhaps, and it certainly feels like it now. Bucky has seen her countless times in her ratty sleep shorts and old T-shirts that usually have at least one hole in; but that’s also in the cheerful chaos of the house in Delacroix and it hadn’t taken all that long of his staying there regularly before Bucky had stopped getting dressed fully before anyone else was awake and up and had started shuffling into the kitchen in his sweatpants and with wild bedhead.

But just the two of them in Bucky’s apartment in Brooklyn, she had wanted something different. She had wanted the assumption that was so easy to slip into that they would end up sharing his bed after a couple of nights at most maybe of Bucky exiling himself to the pull-out couch in his living room. She had wanted to look like a pulled-together, grown-ass woman who was capable of starting an adult relationship with some measure of sophistication.

And Sarah had thought about the way the dull gold satin would look against her dark skin and how it would feel when he stripped it off her.

She pulls out her phone and taps on the screen before she’s even thought about it. It rings three times and then:

‘Sarah.’ 

That soft warm tone with a hint of huskiness and there’s an impossible intimacy to the way he says her name. Sarah closes her eyes. 

‘I want to see you.’

She hears him inhale, exhale. 

‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’

‘I have your address,’ she says. ‘I can just go over there.’

‘No! Sarah, I…’ A harsh rush of breath. ‘No good will come of it. Just- just enjoy your course. We’ll find Bucky. Everything will be okay, I promise.’

‘I know that. I still want to see you.’ She frowns at the tasteful artwork adorning the pale walls. ‘I’m here for a week, I will stake your place out. Don’t think I won’t.’

A pause. 

‘Fine. I’ll meet you in the hotel lounge. There must be a coffee shop or something.’

‘Okay. I’ll see you soon.’

He rings off and Sarah sits with a hollowness in her bones. Her head feels hot, muzziness pressing around all of her edges. She wipes her eyes and goes back to her phone.

She stares at that for long moments as horrified understanding creeps in by increments.

Which it may very well be, but Sarah has no qualms about arguing with anyone.

The hotel lounge is all clusters of plump leather chairs and couches nestling in dimly-lit corners, half-hidden by sweeps of blood-red velvet curtains and stretched-out fingers of lush potted palms. Sarah’s eyes move restlessly from the pair of bright pink to-go cups on the low table and the street door that she can just about see from her vantage point, as though the coffee will vanish or Bucky will appear when she isn’t looking. 

Sarah takes some of her coffee, wipes the lipstick mark off the white plastic cover, looks up and feels her breath catch in the back of her throat with a soft whoop.

Two women in work-out gear and a harried-looking man in a dark business suit but behind them is a tall, broad-shouldered figure who eases through the space with that utterly counter-intuitive combination of stealth and swaggering charm. Sarah takes a moment just to look at him, at the fine cut of his jaw and high cheekbones, at the fan of dark lashes over his summer-sky blue eyes, at the softly tousled peaks of his hair that gleam under all of the artful lighting. The collar of his navy peacoat is popped, the fine wool sweater beneath hinting at the powerful muscles in his chest.

He looks more like he’s walked off a movie set than off the street and Sarah is hit once again by mind-shredding unreality and the thought that maybe this is all just some elaborate seduction - that Sam of all people has somehow gone along with - to get her into more decadent surroundings that would lower her resistance, as though she’d actually had any to begin with.

And then he’s closer and Sarah can see the hollows in his temples that weren’t there before and the wounded look he carries with him as though even the act of living is a burden. 

There’s not the usual quick, easy, hug, no brush of his lips against her cheek. He folds himself into the chair beside hers and looks as though he wishes he were miles away.

Sarah rakes his face desperately, feeling all of her confusion and sorrow condense down into something far simpler: concern for the man who has come to mean so much to her.

‘Are you okay?’ she asks softly and his eyes round with surprise. She winces. ‘Sorry, that- That’s a dumb question.’

‘No, it’s-’ 

His voice, still so low and mellow, like a caress that she wants to lean into.

‘It’s not. I…’ He summons up a phantom version of his usual incandescent smile. ‘I’m okay.’

‘I got you coffee,’ she says abruptly, picking up one of the cups and holding it out to him awkwardly. ‘The shop was closing at five, so… It’s an Americano.’

He blinks. ‘Oh. Right. Thanks.’ Barnes takes it, holds it between his hands. ‘Is the hotel okay?’

‘Okay?’ She feels hysterical laughter bubble in her chest. ‘Damn, Bucky, I got a view of St Patrick’s Cathedral from my window. Guessing you gotta be paying extra for that.’

Shoulders ride up and down in an easy motion. ‘Probably.’

Sarah places her half-empty cup on the table. ‘You shouldn’t go wasting your money like this.’

She can feel the way his spine stiffens fractionally, the heavy seriousness of his gaze. ‘It isn’t a waste. If it makes you feel any better,’ he adds, ‘it’s from reappropriated HYDRA funds. Can’t think of a better use for them. I can have you upgraded to one of the suites if you want to help me really put a dent in them.’ The crooked smile quirking his lips doesn’t quite lessen the bitter pain around his eyes.

‘Just how much money you got salted away?’ Curious but not really interested.  

Another easy shrug. ‘Enough. Not like super-yacht and a private jet money, but enough to live quietly somewhere without ever having to worry about  anything.’

Which in itself is an immeasurable wealth, Sarah thinks and thinks that he knows that, too. And then there’s the fact that he could just go and do that but doesn’t, that he stands by Sam, throws himself into the fight, comes back down to Delacroix, to her-

‘Bucky,’ she says, firm, and is met with an immediate shake of his dark head. ‘I am not calling you Barnes,’ she continues, gunning over any objections he might have made. ‘That’s just ridiculous.’

‘It’s as good a name as any,’ he replies, everything shuttered in his face, trying to push her out of the little circle of contentment they had built around themselves. 

‘I don’t call my friends by their last names. Maybe Sam can justify it with some just bro stuff military bullshit, but I can’t.’ Her voice sounds harder, more relentless than she had intended and she waits for the further retreat. Instead there’s a flicker of amusement.

‘You know what a simulacrum is?’ he asks and it’s such a bafflingly unexpected question that Sarah just stares at him. ‘It’s a copy of a copy. Only it ends up being copied so many times that no-one can tell it from the real thing anymore. Or, rather, people forget what the real thing was and just take the copy as real.’

She nods. ‘Okay, yeah. Like The Matrix.’

It’s Barnes’ turn to look puzzled. ‘I- what?’

‘It is a film,’ a smooth, slightly distant voice interposes, ‘of dubious philosophical worth. And the effects have not aged well.’

Sarah stares at him, eyes wide, and finally chokes out, ‘What is that?’

Barnes is already pawing at his pocket, pulls out his phone. ‘It’s nothing, it’s just Griot.’

‘I am honoured to finally make your acquaintance, Sarah Wilson! uMama Omkhulu has long been desirous that Ingcuka Emhlophe should bring you to Birnin Zana for the proper introductions.’

‘Griot!’ Between gritted teeth, and Barnes’ face flushes a deep shade of red. He glances up at Sarah and panicked guilt stutters across his face. ‘I’m sorry, he’s- Griot is Shuri’s AI, we had him put on the phone to help with finding Bucky.’

Sarah nods dumbly. ‘Of course,’ she says, calm.

‘Griot, buddy, this is a private conversation, can you-can you just, I dunno, go talk to Siri or something?’

The AI actually sniffs at that. 

‘Siri is a glorified algorithm, one cannot have a conversation with it,’ Griot says in freezing tones.

Sarah feels hysterical laughter bubbling up, their fierce little human tragedy apparently about to tip over into farce.

‘Then take a nap!’ Barnes snaps.

The phone remains silent. Barnes puts it back in his pocket, scrubs at his face. ‘Sorry about that.’

The armchair is wonderfully soft and inviting. Sarah perches on the edge, titling forward towards him. ‘Is that what you think you are? A simulacrum?’

He smiles thinly. ‘It’s what I am.’

Sarah looks at him carefully. ‘Is that why you don’t want people calling you Bucky?’

Barnes shifts, staring down at the fingers laced together tightly in his lap. ‘All of my … thoughts. Feelings. Everything I remember - they’re all his. Everything that makes up a person. I can’t take his name from him.’ 

It’s almost protective, the way he says it and Sarah feels a rush of tenderness for this man - this man - sitting so close to her.

‘I can understand that,’ she says, soft. Her head tilts. ‘How about James?’

His mouth quirks, a faint echo of his sunny-sky smile. ‘You call Bucky that sometimes.’

Memory rises, unbidden. His last visit to Delacroix and he’d been sitting at the kitchen table, Cass and AJ either side with buggy eyes and squeaky exclamations while he had let them watch as he had made some minor adjustments inside the control panel of his arm. They had grown a little bored when he had moved on to buffing the vibranium once he was done tinkering. Sarah had sat in AJ’s vacated chair, taken the soft cloth from his hand and finished the job for him.

‘James,’ she had said, soft, just his name and he had looked at her with a world of longing and promise in his eyes. She had thought about kissing him then, something so easy and simple, and then Cass had hollered for him to come watch their TV show.

Sarah smiles faintly at the memory, feeling the warmth of it still clinging against her skin. ‘Jimmy? Or Jim?’

He makes a disapproving face and looks heart-tearingly young.

‘Jamie.’

His breath catches, wistfulness written clear into his face before he tucks it away again. ‘That- Yeah, I, uh, I guess that would be okay.’

‘Sam’s worried about you,’ Sarah continues, gripping her own hands tight together to stop herself from brushing her fingers through his hair, against the curve of his cheekbone.

‘I know. But we’ll find Bucky-’

She makes a frustrated noise. ‘I mean he’s worried about you. How you are, how you’re feeling, the fact that- That you’re planning on-on decommissioning yourself when this is all done with.’ It feels ugly in her mouth, sounds even uglier on the expensively scented air.

‘Why does it matter? It’s not like I’m a real person.’

‘You are real.’

A watery breath of a laugh greets that. ‘No, I’m not. I’m… God, it never ends!’ 

All the delicate fractures that he keeps so carefully hidden away are visible now, fragile as glass about to break. His face trembles and then the words come, rough as though just the saying of them hurts.

‘After everything that happened, everything I lost and-and I lost everything, Sarah, I lost everyone I ever loved and just when I think maybe I can get something back, maybe there's a life I can actually have, something else happens and it all goes away again and now-now this and I can’t- I can’t…’ He pulls in a breath, tries to claw back some measure of control that is slipping from him. ‘I can’t even count on the fact of being a real live human being and I’m tired of it! Jesus, I’m just so fucking tired of being a science experiment freak show!’

The self-lacerating anguish of his words, the worn-out threadiness of his voice, and worst of all the raw wounded pools of silver-blue that are his eyes before he buries his face in his hands, thumbs pressing into his eye sockets.

Sarah puts an arm around his shoulders, her other hand cupping his damp cheek.

Just let me love you, she thinks desperately but she says, ‘Jamie,’ gentle, her voice breaking over the syllables and he shudders, holding a pained sound at the back of his throat.

She takes his face between both of her hands and makes him look at her, red-rimmed eyes in his too-pale face. No-one should have to carry so much pain and misplaced guilt, but he does it and she’ll help him hold it up whether he wants her to or not. 'You are more than that. You have always been more than that. And-and whatever, whoever, you are now, you are more than that. There are people who love you. You! Sam and-and me. I do. I lo-’

He catches hold of her, pulling her towards him and it’s awkward, the fat arms of the chairs bumping between them and she’s at an uncomfortable angle, her words lost in the curve of his shoulder and he smells of soap and aftershave, the fine wool coat scratching against her cheek and his breath ragged on the back of her neck.

When he releases her she sits back, dazed, feeling each hammer blow of her heart. 

Some discreet, unseen hand has pulled the heavy velvet curtains across the doorway between where they are and the bustling hotel lobby. How the other half lives, she thinks vaguely but is also vaguely grateful for it, that their intimate scene has played out against this private backdrop.

In the moments it has taken Sarah to arrange that much of her thought processes, Barnes- Jamie - has turned himself back into the straight-spined soldier, his face approximating something of his habitual neutral expression.

‘Have you eaten? You need to eat, right? You should eat.’ His eyes wander around their newly intimate space. ‘This place probably has a decent restaurant.’

‘Probably,’ Sarah agrees and her throat feels tight and her eyes burn. ‘I don’t- Can we get out of here?’ He looks stricken and she follows it up: ‘This place is great but…’ She pulls in a breath that doesn’t feel like it goes down far enough. ‘I need some air. There must be some regular places in Midtown, right?’

He manages to pull up a smile that looks as though it’s taking everything he has. ‘I guess so. Let’s find out.’

Midtown, it turns out, has just about everything. And each direction they turn looks like the set from one of Sarah’s favourite rom-coms.

And there are plenty of regular places to eat, she soon realises; just about every cuisine is available a few paces from her stupidly plush hotel that she already sort of loves because it is, hands down, the most glamorous place she has ever stayed and also sort of hates because it isn’t Bucky’s apartment and at the moment the latter outweighs the former.

They find a hole-in-the-wall pizza parlour that serves thin-crust pizza piled with carefully partnered toppings. Sarah doesn’t really feel all that hungry but knows that, practically, she needs to eat, so she leaves the order to Bu- Jamie, who surveys the menu with a critical eye and then orders them a combination of goat’s cheese, olives and artichokes that she raises her eyebrows at, if only to herself, but when it arrives at the small table that they just about have elbow room at and his beer is shoved up against her wine, the bitter black olives cut through the tangy cheese and creamy artichoke and with the dry wine the flavours explode in her mouth and she has to admit, grudgingly but with more grace that Sam would, that it’s probably the best pizza she’s ever had.

If it was the worst, she wouldn’t care because Bucky/Barnes/Jamie smiles at her with that fireworks light that illuminates parts of her she had given up thinking about until she had found him on the deck of her boat and in one way or the other he had never really left her, even when he wasn’t physically there.

Because the intricate clasps for her hair that she’s pretty sure are genuine Wakandan vibranium, and the sliders and curveballs that Cass and AJ have started using when they’re pitching to each other out in the yard, and the way that Cass has started walking with a purposeful White-city-boy roll to his shoulders, all of that is a constant thread of Bucky in her home.

They wander back up towards Fifth Avenue, the creamy heights of Rockefeller Plaza rising above them. They circle the space where the ice-rink is at Christmastime and even now the area is lit up by the softly-twinkling lights threaded through the surrounding trees.

Jamie (because she refuses to think of him any other way) stares up at the soaring buildings with a slightly wry smile.

‘I remember when they were building this place.’

Somehow reminding herself of the length of his life is more of a shock than remembering that the man beside her is computer chips and wiring under the skin.

‘Don’t tell me you were one of those guys sitting on a girder eating your lunch.’      

He grins, eyes crinkling. ‘No, but I tried. The money was pretty good so pretty much everyone wanted in on it. I lied about my age but it didn’t fool anybody.’

He looks around, affection tinged by loss behind his eyes. 

‘Becca had her big birthday treat here one time,’ he says, voice trailing off and the blue rimming the big black pupils matches the powdery sky above. ‘You know, you could get a ham sandwich and a malted for forty-five cents up on the observation roof?’ He shakes his head. ‘Forty-five cents. We saw Frank Sinatra at Radio City Music Hall. Skinny little guy but my God could he sing.’

They make a circuit of the sunken courtyard with the gold statue and flags and twinkling lights and piped music.

‘Who is Mama…’ She trails off, frowns. ‘That thing Griot said.’

A faint grimace ripples across his face. ‘uMama Omkhulu. It means Great Mother, it- It’s what some people in Wakanda call Ramonda.’

‘Ramonda.’ She repeats it, slow. ‘As in Queen Ramonda? The Queen of Wakanda, that Ramonda?’ A tall woman of impossible dignity and ludicrous beauty who is every inch Sarah’s idea of what a proud Black woman should be.

He nods, staring ahead.

‘Why would the Queen of Wakanda want to meet me?’

‘Sam’s talked about you,’ he says, words slipping out with a little too much ease.

Sarah nods. ‘Oh, of course. Sam who barely knows anyone in Wakanda has told the royal family all about me. Yeah, that makes sense.’

‘Okay, so Bucky may have said something one time, I dunno,’ he mutters, apparently finding the window display at FAO Schwartz fascinating.

Sarah ducks her head, her cheeks rounding. ‘Bucky, huh? Nothing to do with you.’

The look he shoots her is pained and there’s an uncertain slant to his mouth.

‘What might Bucky have said?’

The uncertainty flattens into a contained neutrality. ‘I should probably let Bucky tell you that himself.’

Sarah nods, meditative, studies the array of educational toys in the store window, the chemistry sets and telescopes and thinks vaguely that she’ll have to stop in and get the boys something before she leaves.

‘I’m not the person you wanted to be here with, I know that.’ His voice is soft and despite his efforts to keep his tone light Sarah can hear the unmistakeable longing twisting through.

‘If I’d met you for the first time tonight…’ They start on another circuit about the courtyard, under the soughing trees and the starry lights. ‘Y’know, if you’d come up to me in the lobby all hey, little lady, you new in town?’

He lets out an undignified snort-laugh and turns incredulous eyes on her backed up by a healthy amount of offended outrage. ‘"Hey, little lady?!" I’m chatting you up like John Wayne all of a sudden?’

Sarah grins, delighted at the sparking warmth in his face, at the loosening across his shoulders as though his whole body is objecting to the notion that he would ever deliver a line that corny. He rolls his eyes.

‘Okay, so I mosey on over to you, apparently and say’ -an exaggerated sigh- ‘hey, little lady, you new in town?’

Laughter bubbles up in her chest and she lets it out, tilting her head back and he laughs with her, that bright sound that she has come to love. His face is alight, that sunshine smile that might just be one of the most beautiful things she’s ever seen.

‘If we’d met,’ she continues, calmer, ‘if we’d got talking, I can’t imagine not wanting that. I would have wanted to talk to you.’

Sarah’s never really bothered much with schooling her expression, always happy to let her face show whatever it is she wants saying. So she doesn’t school it now but she hopes that he can see all of the things that she means, that all of her honest love and affection are clear to his intent, searching gaze.

Whatever he sees mists across his eyes, the laughter in his face deepening down into something softer and yearning fills up the hollow spaces in her head and around her heart.

‘I know it isn’t much, but-’ Sarah presses her lips together, stares across the courtyard at the pretty girl with long black hair making her amiably willing boyfriend take endless influencer-style photos of her.

‘What?’ His head tilts, inquisitive. Sarah knows him well enough by now to know that he won’t leave it alone.

‘You said that all of your memories are Bucky’s but… Well, this week with you and Sam and now here with me-’ Her gaze skitters from his, finds his face again and he watches her with the same intent precision he'd probably had in his sniper’s nests. Sarah feels her throat bob around an uncomfortable tightness. ‘Like I said, I know it’s not much but it- I mean, I’ve never done this with Bucky. Sure, we’ve had coffee and walked around some together but never in some swanky Manhattan hotel.’

‘Swanky?’ He looks amused and fond in a way that leaves a syrupy feeling behind her ribs.

‘It is very swanky. Like, Sex and the City swanky.’

His eyes widen with something that looks like alarm. ‘Sex and- What?’

Sarah’s mouth opens and closes and she feels her cheeks round despite herself as she imagines his 1940s sensibilities coming up against the sexual mores of Carrie Bradshaw and crew. ‘It’s a TV series. They had a lot of fancy settings in Manhattan, is all.’

‘Oh,’ he says, and nods wisely.

Fancy settings, expensive shopping habits and beautiful men-

‘I was looking forward to this week,’ she says, and the words tumble out without her permission. Sarah glares at the glowing statue of Prometheus across the sunken courtyard.

‘You can still do your course,’ he says, a divot deepening between his brows. ‘You’re not in any danger.’

Sarah stares at him and for a moment thinks he’s joking but then she sees the earnestness in the lines of his face, the way that he leans towards her slightly, all anxious and with a sudden tension coiled in his lines.

‘No, I know, I meant- I meant I was looking forward to staying with you.’ She thinks about her hotel room with its swathes of thick carpet and impressive view and large, inviting bed. ‘I even bought new pyjamas.’

‘Oh?’ His gaze takes in every flicker across her face. She makes herself meet it, hold it.

‘I thought- I wanted you to see me looking better than I do in the morning at home.’

There’s a long moment while something complicated works itself across his face and then it settles into a wistful affection that catches Sarah somewhere deep below her belly.

‘Oh, I dunno,’ he says, and his velvet-rough voice brushes against her ears and his smile then is maddeningly charming: boyish with a hint of danger lurking at the edges. ‘I think you look pretty cute in the mornings.’

Her lips quirk up. ‘Yeah? Even in my T-shirt with the hole?’

‘Especially in your T-shirt with the hole,’ he tells her, solemn. ‘And your legs look pretty damn good in those shorts.’

Somehow they are standing very close. She can see the dusting of freckles across the high points of his cheekbones and the individual lashes framing his lovely eyes.

Sarah takes hold of her courage, places her hands on his shoulders. ‘I meant it, earlier. What you wouldn’t let me say. I do love you, for who you are. And if Bucky was here I’d say it to both of you.’

Amusement and interest flicker through his gaze. ‘Both of us, huh?’

Sarah smiles, a sweet precious ache in the centre of her chest. ‘Just more of you for me to love.’

‘Sarah…’ 

His hands come up to frame her face, a whisper against her skin and that almost-touch kindles a wanting in her that subsumes every other thought and feeling except the aching need for his touch, his kiss, his love and to be able to give him hers in return.

She reaches for him, arms encircling the solid warmth of his body, her hands splayed flat against his broad back, her head tilted to his.

His lips ghost against hers, so brief that for a moment she isn’t sure it has even happened, but that barely-there contact is enough to buckle her knees and she sags against him, heavy-lidded eyes turned up to his face that is still so close to hers. He breathes out as she breathes in and she feels it all the way down to her toes, warm and intimate, each nerve ending sparking.

She presses herself against him, straining up towards him and he angles her head back, kissing her with a dedicated thoroughness that drives every thought from her head that isn’t about the contact of his body against hers and his firm lips and clever, sinful tongue in her mouth.

Breath ragged as they breathe against each other.

‘I should get you back to the hotel.’ His voice sounds wrung out, which is about the only distant triumph that Sarah can feel because every part of her screams with the loss of contact, with the absence of his solid strength and enveloping warmth.

When her gets her back to the elevator bank that is all marble and mirrors and gilt her head is still spinning but certainty and wanting ache through her. He wraps her in an embrace that holds a continent’s worth of unspoken feeling and Sarah feels every contour of it burrowing down under sensitive skin.

‘Come up with me.’ She tilts her head back, looks at him.

‘God knows I want to,’ he says, desire roughening his voice. His hands sit tight on her waist. ‘But it wouldn’t be fair. Not- not to any of us.’

The elevator pings, doors rolling open.

Sarah shunts back, each thought floating away, independent from her body but she keeps her eyes on him until the doors roll closed again and the elevator rises, spitting her out on the thirty-third floor to her decadently spacious room and empty bed and aching, wanting heart.

Chapter Text

Sam finds a place to park down a quiet side street near Sarah’s fancy hotel and he’s pretty sure the spot is under a cardinal’s window or something because Barnes has apparently decided to put Sarah up in one of the ritziest hotels in the city. 

A decision of which Sam entirely approves because it’s nothing less than Sarah deserves. 

He texts the location details to Barnes and leaves the engine running, hoping that whatever tender goodnights are currently happening won’t take too long because he has a feeling that Idling While Black in this neighbourhood probably wouldn’t end too well. He doesn’t have to wait all that long before the passenger door swings open and Barnes slides in, giving Sam a jerky nod and his face thoughtful with only the faintest traces of a hectic flush dancing along the high points of his cheekbones.

‘You okay?’ Sam asks.

‘Yeah. Yup. Fine. All good.’

Which is totally convincing.

‘Uh-huh,’ Sam says and keeps his eyes on Barnes who keeps his eyes fixed on some point in the distance, approximately three sets of traffic-lights away. It isn’t the closed-off hunched-up misery that characterises Bucky’s body language at his lowest moments, it’s just more … anxious.

‘I got Griot to track down the schematics of the address in the Bronx, so we’ll know the layout at least,’ Barnes says, still staring diligently through the windscreen as though his life depended on it. ‘Griot, can you send the details to Redwing?’

Silence.

Barnes frowns.

‘Griot.’ He taps against his chest where his phone is in his pocket. ‘Griot?’

‘Oh, so am I allowed to speak now?’ The AI’s voice is petulant and loud with it in the close confines of the car. ‘I had thought that you still wanted me napping.’

‘What is going on?’ And it isn’t a question that Sam really wants answering.

‘Nothing,’ Barnes grinds out and the flush has spread down his cheeks. ‘I don’t think that asking for a little privacy was an unreasonable request!’ Addressed to his breast pocket.

Sam watches this, his lips twitching and his hands rest light on the steering wheel. ‘How’s Sarah?’ he asks innocently.

Barnes turns a wild, guilty, gaze on him. ‘Fine! She’s fine. She’s good. Everything is fine.’

Sam nods. ‘Mm-hmm. Dealing with the whole situation okay?’

‘Yes, good, she-she’s handling it all real good.’ Face as red as though he had acquired a bad sunburn in the last couple hours.

‘Sergeant Barnes and Ms Wilson had a most successful date,’ Griot supplies with a distinctly smug tone.

‘It was not a date!’ Barnes yelps, scrabbling at his pocket to retrieve his phone.

‘According to my understanding, it met the criteria,’ Griot continues mercilessly. ‘You had dinner together, you indulged in a stroll under romantic conditions and then-’

‘Nothing happened!’

‘That is not how it sounded from the inside of your pocket, Sergeant Barnes.’

Barnes has his phone in a death-like grasp and sucks in a wheezing breath enough to say to Sam, ‘Would you give us a minute?’ before barrelling out of the car.

Under normal circumstances, Sam would have taken photographs at the very least, more likely video, but instead he punches out a message to Sarah because giving his baby sister shit about her love-life is a normal, healthy occupation that seems to be much needed and something to keep Sam’s fraught emotions from spilling over.

Barnes clambers back into the car, still pink-cheeked and his mouth set at a determined angle.

‘Sorry about that.’

Sam shrugs easily. ‘It’s all good.’ He lets the silence lie just long enough that  Barnes’ taut shoulders start to lower fractionally from up around his ears and then says mildly, ‘Just so we’re clear, though: while I’ve been having consecutive breakdowns over Bucky and your sorry ass, you’ve been making out with my little sister?’

‘Oh my God!’ Barnes buries his burning face in his hands. ‘It is not like that!’

‘It is overly dramatic in its statement but the fundamental situation is accurate,’ Griot states, clearly unchastened by whatever threats Barnes had unleashed.

‘I swear to God I will delete you,’ Barnes grinds out through gritted teeth.

Sam grins with malicious delight at Barnes and then laughs. ‘C’mon, man, it ain’t that big a deal.’

Wide blue eyes emerge from behind flesh and metal hands and peer at Sam, all anxious and earnest as though Sam is some disapproving 1930s father - and he’s pretty sure that Bucky Barnes encountered his fair share of those in his time. But that intent stare raking Sam’s face seems to truly be looking for … if not Sam’s approval, his reassurance perhaps. Sam feels his sharp grin soften into fond affection.

‘Sounds like you two had a nice time, like regular people. I’m glad. You both deserve it.’

‘Thanks…’ Barnes says, cautious, still wide-eyed. ‘It’s just…’ He shifts, awkward and uncertain again.

‘What?’

‘Kinda- Kinda feel like I took advantage, a bit, y’know? I mean,’ he adds quickly, ‘not like that, Sarah’s your sister and I would never-’

‘Bet you had that whole I’ll have her back by ten, sir routine down pat back in the day, huh?’

‘Sam…’ Barnes groans. ‘I mean, it’s like I went behind Bucky’s back.’

Sam laughs again, hanging over the steering wheel and maybe there’s an edge of hysteria to it. It’s like some weird subreddit: Am I the asshole for kissing the almost-girlfriend of the guy I’m a robot double of? It wouldn’t even be the weirdest thing he’s ever seen on Reddit. The thought makes him laugh harder, until his eyes are wet with it. Sam feels the back of a hand strike sharply against his arm.

‘This isn’t funny!’

‘No, no, I know.’ Sam clears his throat, swipes a rough hand across his streaming eyes and rearranges his features into an approximation of sobriety. ‘Look, that all is between the three of you to figure out; but, and you are literally in the best position to know this, do you really think Bucky will be mad at you because you and Sarah kissed?’

Barnes chews the inside of his lip, brow furrowing and he has a slightly distant stare. 

’N-no,’ he says, eventually and manages to not make it sound like a question.

Sam nods. ‘Good.’ He puts the car into drive, noses it out into the street. ‘Givin’ out romantic advice to androids, man, I am not paid enough for this.’

He hears Barnes snigger faintly and Sam smiles.

The address in the Bronx takes them to an office park that is little more than a collection of shabby single-storey buildings. Scrubby, stunted trees leftover from when the place was first in development, probably, concrete cracked and cratered in places.

Most of the units are boarded up but a handful look slightly more maintained: a pharmaceutical company, a fitness centre, something advertising itself as a makers’ collective and a gaudily-lit recording studio boasting 24-hour access and fun times guaranteed for parties and corporate events. 

Sam stares at it and the dead-eyed kid sitting on reception in bemusement before turning his attention back to their target.

Praetorian Electronics has the shuttered look of a place that hasn’t seen much traffic lately. One-way windows reflect the street lights and Sam wonders if they were installed by the recent occupants or if it was chosen because of the ready-made privacy.

‘Rent’s paid through the end of the month,’ Barnes says. ‘Griot’s tracing the payments, see if it leads anywhere.’

‘Nothing so far,’ Griot volunteers, ‘but it is early yet.’

‘If there’s anything to find, you’ll find it.’ Barnes sounds almost fondly encouraging, friendly relations apparently restored between him and the AI. Like Sam, his eyes make constant sweeps of the surroundings, identifying every point of entry and exit, any spots that can be used to their advantage or against them. The blueprints Griot had pulled up show a largely open-plan space within, with a handful of smaller rooms that could be used as workshops or for storage.

Sam taps at the control panel strapped to his wrist. ‘Okay, Redwing Junior and Redwing the Third have nearly finished their scans.’

Barnes turns what is, in Sam’s opinion, an unnecessarily judgmental side-eye on him. ‘Can you not just call them Red One and Red Two like a normal person? They are drones, Sam, not a Goddamn bird dynasty.’

‘You’re the one who wanted the intel,’ Sam replies placidly. ‘Only good manners to put some respect on the names.’

‘I am not calling it Redwing the Third!’

Sam grins, triumphant. ‘Just did! so-’

‘Oh sweet Jesus!’ 

‘So, this is what we got: no organic heat signatures, no movement, no signs of life in any of the spaces. There’s some electrical activity but nothing unusual for an after-hours office building.’

Barnes nods. ‘Okay. So, we’re going in?’

‘We’re going in.’

Sam has long become accustomed to how stealthy Bucky can be when the mission requires it. His catlike-tread and ability to remain unnervingly still lend themselves well to near-silent infiltration; but even so, the speed with which he can pick a lock, fingers fast and unerring, still always comes as a mild surprise.

They ease through the door and only when it's fully closed does Sam flick the light switch. A low hum as the strip-lights come on, harsh white light poking into dark corners. 

A bank of filing cabinets, a handful of desks and a water-cooler in one corner, the bottle still half-full. 

Barnes stalks across to the cabinets, starts a systematic search, yanking the bottom drawers open and working his way up. Sam makes a circuit of the room and learns not much beyond the scratchy thinness of cheap carpet tile, the omnipresent low hum of air-con and strip lights, and the faint metallic smell of dust and machine oil in the air. Not unexpected in a place that, apparently, deals in electronics but Sam has a low roiling feeling in his gut about the nature of those electronics.

‘Nothing,’ Barnes says, the final drawers pulled out with a screech of metal on metal. He slams it shut. The dark mouth of a corridor leads away from the open reception area and they both look towards it.

Communication in a raised eyebrow, the angle of a body, a tilted head. They move together, easy and seamless. Natural. It’s always been natural, Sam thinks, even when they were at their worst; even when all they had to say to one another was a jibe born of mutual pain and frustration and grief, they had still fallen into a physical pattern of trust as though muscle and bone and sinew had understood what their clouded brains could not: that they needed each other, could rely on each other, not matter what. He’s grateful for the comforting familiarity of Barnes’s presence; he still misses Bucky with a deep aching fear.

Sam proceeds down the corridor, Barnes at his six.

The first two doors open onto entirely bare rooms. 

The third is larger, much larger, and it is not bare.

Not unlike the lab at Columbia, there’s a bank of computer terminals, silent and blank. Bits of wiring and discarded metal litter the desks, one slightly larger piece that’s a complicated construct shining bright silver under the harsh glare of neon lighting. Sam picks it up, studies it thoughtfully. He pulls against one of the fine wires running along the side and the uppermost joint hinges towards him like a beckoning finger.

It’s both human and monstrously inhuman and Sam shudders, replacing it on the table and thinks then, tardily and with a pang of uncomfortable remorse, that these structures underlie Barnes’ seemingly human skin, that they are in the fingers that have curled about Sam’s in a reciprocal show of friendship, that have made food, watered plants, played dumb online games with Torres, that have held Sarah-

Sam stares at the delicate fusion of metal plating and wiring. The cybernetic arm that Shuri had made is exquisite, a marvel of engineering and beautiful in its organic lines that flash with inlaid gold. So much a part of Bucky, moving with his elegant grace, that Sam doesn’t even really register it anymore. And if and when he does it’s to acknowledge Shuri’s genius in its creation but also the thought that its true beauty comes from the man who wields it, that his essential goodness and decency after all the horrors of his life are the real gold shining through the darkness.

Shit, maybe that’s what Shuri had seen all along; maybe that’s why she had designed it that way.

Sam gives himself a mental shake. And feels his lips twitch slightly. Even if the grumpy-ass android version of Bucky had been built for some nefarious purpose, Sam has no doubt that the stubborn bone-deep cussedness of one James Buchanan Barnes had overridden all of it, because BuckyBot Barnes, the Paranoid Android, has every inch of Bucky’s unwavering certainty, his brusque kindness and his generous heart.  

If they can’t find him-

Sam slams the thought down. He’s finding Bucky, even if he has to take the world apart to do it.

Barnes is across the room and Sam pads across to join him and the … thing .. he’s staring at. It looks a bit like an upright gurney, metal armrests with sleek cuff restraints lined with padded leather, electrodes like a halo around where the head would be if someone were strapped in there. All matte black and dull chrome. 

The expression on Barnes’ face is horribly distant, lines carved deep and his breath is coming too fast, too shallow. His left hand balled so tightly the mechanism in his arm whirrs, metal scraping against metal.

‘Barnes?’

Sam feels his stomach drop, cold twist around his gut. ‘Buck. Bucky!’

Barnes’ chest shakes under the strain of a deep breath and his gaze slowly peels away from the contraption, eyes blank and skittering as though he’s tracking something that only he can see.

Panic rises, sudden and sickening, prickling against Sam’s scalp. Bogotá last year, they’d been caught in an ambush and when they’d fallen into a safe house Sam had had to pull the shrapnel out of Bucky’s back and chest with a basic first-aid kit and no anaesthetic and Bucky had started to dissociate with the shock and the pain. 

His eyes had looked the same then, emptily seeing something too far away. Sam grabs his right shoulder, shakes him.

‘Hey!’

Maybe not the best decision, not the safe or prudent one and he’ll probably get a furious diatribe about it later but that’s fine, he’ll take it, he’ll take all of it, just-

‘Sam.’ Voice a rasp, rusty and sounding almost painful over a dry throat. Barnes blinks at him.

‘You good?’

Breath in and out and he scans Sam’s face as though he’s looking for something, trying to catch hold of something and Sam stands firm under that searching gaze, willing his face into a warm, placid neutrality and maybe it works, maybe it’s what Barnes needs because his shoulders peel away from his ears and the awful haunting emptiness behind his eyes recedes, filling up again with sparking embers of life.

Barnes nods. ‘Yeah.’ He runs his tongue over his lips. ‘Yeah, I’m good.’

Sam keeps his hand on Barnes’ shoulder, feels the tension still running through the muscle and bone. He tries to keep his voice gentle. ‘Any idea what that thing is?’

He can feel the tremor run through Barnes’ body, like a plucked string that’s been wound too tight. ‘No. It just-’ His face works horribly for a second. ‘Just reminded me of some-something. Not the same.’ He shrugs Sam’s hand off his shoulder, shakes his head. ‘Not the same.’

Worry sits at the base of Sam’s throat, gritty and thick like the taste of ashes. ‘Okay,’ he says, gentle. ‘But-’

That’s as far as he gets before something that feels like a freight train slams into him. 

It’s a moment before Sam fully registers that his body has hit the ground, his brain still six feet in the air before realising that the rest of him is up close and personal with the cheap, thin carpet. It scratches against his cheek. His nose is horribly close to a ground-in piece of gum. He tries to pull in a breath and his lungs don’t co-operate.

From his broken-doll pose on the floor, Sam watches as Bucky grabs at the figure, his face riven in lines of cold fury, and you gonna be tasting vibranium, motherfucker, he thinks distantly, with the part of his brain that isn’t actively worrying about the fact that the only breaths he can force into his lungs are weak and wheezy.

Barnes lands a solid blow, one that would lay out a man as easily as a regular person would swat a fly.

It doesn’t lay them out. 

The assailant takes advantage of Barnes’ split-second of surprise and aims a kick at his midsection that sends the super-soldier-android arcing across the room. His body hits the wall behind with enough force to leave a Barnes-sized dent and a network of cracks, paint flaking off and settling on Barnes’ prone body like a dusting of frost.

Sam sucks in enough air that he can peel himself off the floor, staggers up to one knee and then a movement like a dark shadow obscures his vision and he’s dragged to his feet, looks their attacker in the face and-

What the fuck?!

It’s a face. More or less. For a moment Sam thinks maybe this is a burn victim and then dismisses it immediately, no amount of grafts and corrective surgery would account for, for this.

For the weird, poreless plasticity of the skin, sickeningly shiny under the strip lights, all of the features there but not quite right, the proportions all slightly off, like a 3-D printing of a human face that’s gone wrong somewhere. And the unblinking eyes…

Round black orbs in the centre of too-white sclera and Sam feels his stomach lurch but his arm comes up automatically to block the next punch and it feels like he’s blocked an iron bar, pain racing up his arm, exploding across nerve bundles.

He springs back into a defensive stance, uses the space opened up between them to create some momentum for a spinning side kick and has the brief satisfaction of seeing his opponent stagger slightly before it rights itself - because this can only be an it - and comes on again.

Sam blocks a flurry of blows, thanking God for those sparring sessions with Bucky that he’d managed to coax him into after months of I might hurt you, Sam because the speed and strength here are about the same.

A sweeping kick takes Sam’s legs out from under him, the back of his head cracking against the floor and the pain radiates out, wrapping around his skull. He snaps his feet up and out, gets his attacker in the stomach, hears a grunt and spins himself up onto all fours, glances wildly about the room.

Barnes is on his feet again, trading blows at a speed that seems improbably fast and punishingly brutal with his opponent who-

Sam blinks for a moment but no, there really are two identical freaky-ass attackers and why are there two of them? Why is there even one of them?!

As far as he gets before he’s sent stumbling back a few feet under a merciless blow from a fist and on instinct he rears his head back and butts it forward, hard, hears something crack and a yell and grins to himself and then a kick drives into the centre of his chest. Sam falls back against the wall, slipping slightly until a pair of hands land at his throat. And start to squeeze.

Sam jams his chin down, trying to deny those unyielding fingers purchase, buy himself a little time. Everything in his hindbrain screaming to claw his way out to survive, to breathe.

The pressure is too much. His assailant’s body crowds against him, weight pinning Sam in place and his fevered senses latch onto the scents of rubber polymer and machine oil.

Sweat drips down his face. The vice-like fingers sliding tighter, millimetres at a time.

Think.

Think.

Of course, he’d left the shield behind. Bucky won’t let him live this one down. If they live through it.

Bucky.

The shield.

The shield.

For when you don’t have your real shield, Sam. Bucky and his shit-eating grin when he’d given Sam that stupid taser keychain.

Sam pulls in as much breath as he can against the relentless pressure on his throat, his lungs burning, his legs starting to kick reflexively and his vision is beginning to white out, numbness spreading up his cheeks.

He keeps his chin tucked, his right hand fumbling into his jeans pocket and he feels metal, the bite of keys against the pad of his finger, the loops of a metal chain and then a round disc. Sam gets his thumbnail under the seam, flicks the cap off.

He tries to take another breath and can’t. There’s a weird, wet feeling in his throat, something slick and coppery behind his teeth. He’ll have to lift his head to make this work.

Sam braces himself against the wall. He raises his head, stares into the inhuman face with its features set in an expression of near-ecstatic triumph.

And he drives the live prongs of the taser into one of the eyeballs, hears the sharp crackle of electricity.

His attacker screams.

The pressure at his neck relaxes enough that Sam can pull in a breath and he sends all of his strength into a two-handed blow in the centre of the chest. The figure stumbles back, straight into Barnes who grips it beneath both arms and in one fluid motion arcs the body back against his sharply-bent knee and snaps the spine. It’s the brittle shatter of metal rather than the sickening crunch of bone.

The body jerks, limbs flailing. Barnes gets one hand around the back of the head, the other in a counter twist at the jaw and his face contorts with the effort, a bellow as his two hands wrench around and the head detaches from the body in a shower of sparks.

The torso stays upright for a moment, exposed wiring standing up from the neck exchanging arcs of electricity, before collapsing like a marionette whose strings have been cut. The head rolls across the floor, coming to rest against the twisted limbs of its robot twin, two sets of weirdly inhuman eyes staring blankly at nothing.

Sam feels his legs give way and he lands on the floor shakily, still wheezing, feeling sensation creep back into his hands and face.

Barnes drops down next to him, stares rigidly ahead. ‘Told ya that taser would come in handy,’ he says.

‘Well, this is a clusterfuck,’ Rhodes tells them, dispassionate. 

Beyond the cubicle’s thin blue curtains is the rush of the ER, all the beep-beep of monitors, the squeak as gurneys are wheeled in and out. Somewhere a drunk is singing Fairytale of New York, which is just wrong on so very many levels, not least of which is that it’s just plain the wrong time of year.

Sitting on a gurney with his elbows resting on his thighs, Sam looks up at him, his dark skin ashen under the harsh clinical lights. ‘No shit,’ he rasps and then coughs.

Rhodes winces in sympathy.

Barnes retrieves another ice-chip from the cup he’s holding and shoves it into Sam’s mouth, receives a withering glare from Sam that doesn’t have all that much heat in it, and then continues boring a hole into the floor with that intent silvery-blue stare.

So far, so-

So normal, actually. Barnes seems exactly as he always is before and after missions: quiet, alert, all of his edges prickling as though he’s prepared to spring into action at any given second. Which he probably is, Rhodes thinks. And also thinks that it’s exactly the qualities that you’d want in the guy who has your six.

But.

There had also been the guy in the diner flirting with the waitress, telling funny stories from back in the day, listening with flatteringly rapt attention while Rhodes had talked about his grandfather, things that no-one had really been all that interested in hearing since Tony.

There’s a part of him, the engineer’s mind, that wants to reach into that - apparently - robotic brain, take everything apart and see how it all works and then Barnes lifts his head and those eyes, ocean-deep and as clear as sunlight bouncing off the face of the water, meet his and it feels like a fist lands in the centre of his chest. It takes a minute to catch his breath.

No matter what Barnes is, no matter who made him, he’s alive in all of the ways that matter. That solemn, haunting gaze stays on Rhodes’ face and the piercing intensity of it is almost too much. Rhodes clears the non-existent thing sitting at the base of his throat, straightens the sharp line of his cuffs. He had told himself that his concern for where Bucky is and what’s happening to him is pragmatic, more about security and just the fact that one of his people has been targeted. The truth is that he feels genuine fear for the man and what’s happening to him and the lack of leads, the empty space where intel should  be is starting to drive him almost as wild as Sam is so obviously feeling. And Sam isn’t wrong to want to protect his friend, any version of his friend, when all the versions of Bucky Barnes, human or not, have done everything possible to protect Sam. Maybe, just maybe, Sam’s insane hole-up-in-a-cabin-somewhere worst case scenario isn’t all that dumb after all.

Shit.

Rhodes shakes his head, sharp, clearing it. He’s getting soft, he thinks.

But if it had been Tony-

Fuck.

The colonel straightens his spine, eyeballs the two men before him. ‘You could’ve kept me in the loop.’

It’s Barnes who puts his eyebrows up. ‘Could we?’

Rhodes returns a glare that’s been honed over decades of service and anyway, he outranks a Goddamn sergeant! Winter Soldier or no…

‘Yes,’ he snaps out.

And he holds that ridiculously intense stare until his eyes are smarting and then Barnes nods fractionally. 

‘Yeah, okay. But it wasn’t much of a lead, a fishing expedition at best, so we thought.’

‘God!’ Rhodes lets out a groan. ‘You two clowns think?’

‘Hey!’ The gravel in Sam’s voice gives the objection less heft than he thinks. ‘There’s only one clown here-’

‘And you’re it,’ Barnes tells him.

Sam splutters, outraged. ‘Man, come on! I set that up and everything.’ He descends into pitiful coughs.

‘You always draw it out too much,’ Barnes says, heartless. ‘You lose your edge.’

Sam grumbles something unintelligible through wheezy rasps and streaming eyes. Barnes feeds him another ice-chip.

‘Who you got on the clean-up crew? Barnes asks.

‘Torres,’ Rhodes tells him and the news is greeted with a nod of acceptance that is bordering on approval. ‘Technically Stark Industries still do some government contract work and consultancy; I reached out to Happy and he’s gonna keep the … components … in a secure facility.’

‘Components.’ Barnes’ eyebrows creep up a fraction. ‘That’s cute. I’ll have to remember that.’ His head tilts. ‘You really think that’s the safest place, Colonel?’

‘Either that or my garage,’ Rhodes says, dry. ‘And I like my place too much to see it firebombed by more bad robots.’

Sam sniggers, the sound catching painfully. ‘Bad robot,’ he rasps. ‘Nice one.’

Barnes scowls. ‘Huh?’

‘Put it on your list,’ Sam tells him.

There’s an eye-roll that looks in danger of never coming back down again one of these days. ‘I don’t have a list anymore.’

Sam massages his throat, squints at Barnes. ‘Since when?’

‘I dunno, Sam,’ it comes out on a sigh, ‘probably around the time I figured a dumb list of movies and records wasn’t gonna help me all that much.’

Sam’s fingers stop flexing against his own skin. Something complicated works its way across Sam’s face that to Rhodes’ experienced eye carries the remnants of an old guilt. It resolves itself into a wry, almost apologetic, smile that pulls at his mouth. ‘Fair.’

And then Barnes turns the full force of his appraising stare onto Rhodes again and the colonel feels his spine straighten like he’s under the terrifying care of his old drill sergeant again. Barnes had been Steve’s XO back in the day, he recalls, still takes over the logistics of missions with such quiet, ruthless efficiency that most of the time no-one even notices it’s happening. 

‘Not a services’ storehouse?’

Rhodes pulls in his lips, pushes them out. ‘No. Your two scientists were military subcontractors. Don’t want to take any chances until we know who and what we’re dealing with.’

Barnes pulls a deep breath in through his nose, releases it and then turns to Sam. ‘Y’know what? He’s all right.’

Rhodes huffs out a laugh. ‘Thanks. I’m touched.’

‘You should be,’ Sam says, his voice crawling over broken glass dipped in battery acid. ‘I’ve never heard him gush like that before.’

Rhodes holds up his hands. ‘I’m getting out of here before I find that y’all’s brand of idiocy is catching.’ He pauses. ‘I’m gonna get Torres to start following the money trail on Praetorian Electronics.’

The pair before exchange a long, silent, glance.

‘There’s only so long I can keep this under wraps,’ Rhodes says, firm. ‘I know you’re worried that whoever these guys are will cut their losses if they know that we know. But the faster we find Bucky-’

‘You don’t need to sell me on that,’ Sam rasps.

‘We have to start bringing people in on this, people we can trust. And I trust Torres.’

Another silent conversation takes place. Sam nods slightly.

‘Yeah, we trust Torres, too,’ Barnes says. ‘We’ve already started on the finances. We, uh… Shuri’s loaned us her AI, Griot. He’s been helping. He’ll have a head start on Torres, so… They should liaise on intel.’

‘I am happy to offer any assistance,’ a pleasant, lightly accented voice says from… somewhere.

Rhodes nods, meditative. ‘Griot. So, he’s Wakandan JARVIS?’

‘No.’

‘Yes.’

‘Sam, what the hell?’ Barnes holds up an empty, questioning hand, palm turned upward. ‘Griot is way superior to JARVIS. No offence,’ he adds, glancing at Rhodes.

The colonel shrugs. ‘Makes no never mind to me, he was’t my AI,’ he says the the same moment that Griot says,

‘Thank you, Sergeant Barnes. It is nice to be appreciated.’

There’s a scratch behind his eyes that hints at an incipient headache. Rhodes presses the pad of his thumb into his left temple, takes in a breath and then straightens himself. ‘Anything else you two idiots want to tell me?’

‘BuckyBot here went on a date with Sarah,’ Sam grits out. Sitting on the edge of the bed, fingers curled around the metal frame.

Barnes turns accusing eyes on Sam while a betraying flush creeps up his neck. ‘It was not a- And BuckyBot, really? We’re back to that?’

Sam puts his eyebrows up. ‘What? Would you prefer Jamie?’ The two syllables get sounded out on an exaggerated sing-song.

There’s a spluttering sound, Barnes’ mouth working and his blue eyes comically round.

Rhodes feels the headache shunt its way to the fore, migrating around the back of his head and settling in. ‘You know what,’ he says, resigned, ‘this is on me. I shouldn’t have asked.’

Sam straightens, humour chasing from his face. ‘You know what room Christine Schaeffer is in?’

Beside him Barnes shifts, stillness bleeding out of him until the air is thick with it. Rhodes catches his eye and looks away.

‘Not sure that’s a good idea, brother,’ he says.

Sam’s jaw juts out, hard and unyielding and Rhodes wonders if that level of stubborn is a pre-requisite for being Captain America or if it’s something acquired when you pick up that damn shield. 

‘Just wanna see how she is. From what her sister said she was probably in over her head.’

‘Probably,’ Rhodes repeats, flat.

Sam’s lips tighten. ‘Yeah. It’s the least I can do.’

The tendons in Barnes’ neck stand out while he swallows something down that he doesn’t want to say out loud.

Rhodes nods wearily. ‘Sure. Anything else?’

Sam blinks through the hardness and his lips twitch upwards into a small smile. ‘Nah. Thanks, man.’

The colonel hums at the back of his throat. ‘Next time you two morons go haring off, you call me first. Right?’

‘Right,’ Barnes, unexpectedly, agrees, head high and no trace of irony or sarcasm in his voice. 

Rhodes meets his gaze again and-

Well. Okay, then.

He studies the two figures for a moment.

Okay.

The on-call doctor with tired eyes and in faded scrubs had given Sam the same once-over as the admission nurse, but with the addition of supplying him with painkillers, a steroidal throat spray and a sheaf of papers for his aftercare. These had been plucked from Sam’s hands by Barnes, quickly studied, and then carefully folded and tucked into the safety of the inner pocket of his coat.

Sam has, on more than one occasion, seen Bucky throw his own hospital discharge papers into the bin before they’ve even exited said hospital and he is legitimately torn between being touched at the evidence of caring and utter fizzing frustration at the reminder of Bucky’s seemingly cavalier approach to his own wellbeing.

But now doesn’t really seem the time when they’re in the elevator up to the fourteenth floor and everywhere smells of disinfectant and another, sharper, pungent scent beneath it that roils in the pit of Sam’s stomach. Barnes’ face is pale and pinched and he’s doing some variation on box breathing as though it’s taking everything in him not to bolt.

They’ve been in hospitals plenty and sometimes it’s enough just to bicker and banter and that will keep Bucky from sliding into that quiet, haunted space. Other times it’s bad but when Sam comes round Bucky will be there, dark cratered eyes in his face that’s stretched pale and taut; when it’s been Bucky in the hospital bed he’s always been ready to stage a breakout as soon as he’s able to get one eye open.

‘You don’t have to come up,’ Sam says, again, and it’s kinda immaterial at this point because they’re already on the elevator and Barnes had given him a pointed, long-suffering look the first time that Sam had said it and then prodded the up button with more than necessary force.

The elevator doors roll back to reveal an identikit institutional corridor with scuffed linoleum flooring, flyers and posters cheerfully describing the symptoms of various ailments and the omnipresent smell of stale air, antiseptic and illness.

Barnes rigid at his side as they walk along the corridor in step, shoulders almost brushing.

The police guard stationed on a hard plastic chair glances up as they approach, one hand moving to rest on his hip. Sam sees the moment of recognition, the way the sudden tension along the man’s shoulders releases again and he nods.

‘How’s she doing?’

It’s greeted with a shrug. ‘No change, far as I know. But then I’m not privy to the medical stuff.’

Sam feels his teeth clamp together. ‘Right.’

He looks through the glass panel in the door, at the small figure in the bed surrounded by beeping machines, IVs and monitors.

‘She might make it,’ a voice says behind them.

Michelle Johnson, still looking tired and worn down, her dishwater-blonde hair greasy and scraped back away from her face. She’s clutching a bottle of purple Kool-Aid, her face puffy with exhaustion.

Sam pulls in a breath that gets stuck somewhere before it hits his lungs. ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ he rasps at her, feeling his throat fill with thick gravel.

‘Doctors say she might be able to hear if people talk to her. I’ve been reading to her.’ Her mouth works for a moment. ‘The Velveteen Rabbit. Like she’s one of my kids. It was her favourite,’ she adds, a sheen across her eyes that she blinks away when she turns her head. Her fingers worry at the bottle-cap.

‘Dan’s watching the kids.’ Her chin lifts, as though daring them to say something. Dan, husband, electrician, Sam remembers from the file Rhodey had sent across. Kind of guy who probably calls it babysitting when he spends  more than ten minutes alone with his own children.

Which might also be an unfair assessment, Sam thinks. He doesn’t actually know the man.

Michelle moistens her lips. ‘I was gonna call you anyhow. There’s-’ She looks away again for a moment and then meets Sam’s gaze, a determined set to her jaw. ‘It’s not much, probably, but that guy, Craig, he had a patch on his jacket. A dog’s head, or something. White, I think. He said something about…’ Her face screws up, eyes squinting. ‘Like, Night Howlers? I dunno, something like that. That’s what he said. Like I told you, I wasn’t really listening.’

Sam nods. ‘Sure. But thanks, though, that’s- That’s great. We appreciate it, really.’

On the edge of his field of vision, he can see Barnes shifting his weight from one foot to the other, head tilting slightly to one side. 

Michelle Johnson twists the cap off the Kool-Aid, keeps the bottle between her hands. ‘Yeah, well… No offence, Captain, but it doesn’t really make any difference to me. I just want my sister to be okay, no matter what she’s done.’

‘I get that,’ he says, and he does. People make dumb decisions all of the time and sometimes the consequences land hard.

When they get back to the car, Sam is treated to a solid two minutes of peak old man rant as Barnes bemoans the exorbitant and, according to him, completely unjustifiable on moral grounds, hospital parking fees. Which Sam, to be honest, can’t really disagree with. He surrenders the car keys and resigns himself to the fact that while he may have circumvented death at the hands of a murderbot android, he will probably face it head on with Barnes’ driving. 

It isn’t that he’s a bad driver. Exactly. He’s fully in control and almost terrifyingly prescient when it comes to anticipating the flow of traffic, moving in and out of lanes without dropping speed, to the point that Sam isn’t sure that he actually knows where the brake is anymore. It’s just that Bucky Barnes drives as though he’s in a particularly fraught John Wick movie and doesn’t care that Sam is along for the ride.

In the car they sit for a moment and Sam frowns at the windshield, something scratching at the back of his mind. ‘Night Howlers…’ Saying it out loud doesn’t help. He shakes his head sharply. ‘Why is that so familiar?’

Barnes sits back in the driver’s seat, his hands loose on the wheel. ‘Zootopia.’

Sam squints at him. ‘What?’

‘Zootopia,’ Barnes repeats, eyes automatically tracking every car that passes, every person walking across the lot. ‘Y’know - the security guard wolves?’

It had been one of their movie nights with the boys not long ago, Cass informing Bucky with intent seriousness that it’s a modern masterpiece, Uncle Bucky and it had been highly quotable in the weeks that followed. Bucky had loved it, laughing himself silly and the missing him is an ever-present ache sitting in Sam’s bones. But they have leads now at least, however tentative, something more than they had even this morning and Barnes’ presence is steadying, grounding. So Sam allows himself these few moments of innocent silliness, groans, loud, and then: ‘Quit it Gary, you’re gonna start a howl!’

Barnes laughs, his head tilting back and his face is bright and clear, eyes sparkling with mischief. ‘I honestly think that wolf shoulda been called Steve,’ he says, humour gurgling under his words. He turns to face Sam, one arm coming up to rest on the back of his seat. ‘I mean, have you any idea how many howls, literal and metaphorical, Steve Rogers started?

Sam groans again, shakes his head. ‘Think I might have been involved in a few.

Barnes is still grinning. It can get complicated, talking about Steve, so they avoid that most of the time. But every now and then there’s something like this, sweet and light and a reminder of the things that had bound them together before all of the hurt. ‘That punk…’ He says with undisguised fondness. ‘Can you imagine if he've had to deal with all this?

Sam pauses in massaging his throat. ‘Shit. He’d have punched out every computer scientist in New York just on principle.’ Maybe that’s what Sam should be doing, useless though it probably is. Or probably not a good idea to waste time that way, he’d learned that the first time he’d tracked Bucky Barnes across the globe.

Barnes nods, ruminative. ‘He was not good with technology.’

An understatement, in Sam’s opinion, remembering the numerous futile attempts at teaching Steve how to use an e-reader. 

‘Having a fake robot best friend probably woulda given him a heart attack, serum or no,’ Barnes continues. He puts his eyebrows up. ‘Y’know, during the war Howard was working on a system that was basically video calls so that the guys on the front lines could see the folks back home? I honest to God heard Steve call it the work of the Devil.’

Sam laughs, shakes his head and then lets it drop back against the headrest. ‘Fuck, I still miss him.’

There’s a pause and then, soft: ‘Yeah.’

Sam prods at a tender spot on his throat and immediately regrets it. He has to work around the lumpy, gravelly feeling there. Barnes is still twisted towards him and Sam lifts his head, looks at the other man consideringly. ‘But you know what? Having a fake robot best friend isn’t so bad.’

A quiet laugh huffs down Barnes’ nose, the grey of his eyes muted. ‘Cap can do with all the friends he can get, huh?’ It comes out dry.

‘Yes. He can.’ Sam lets it sit for a moment and then adds, ‘But I was thinking more about Sam Wilson.’

He lets the weight of that one sit, too.

The hand still on the steering wheel tightens fractionally; Barnes stares at some unfixed point just beyond Sam and then his eyes slide back, a soft quiet pleasure banked down behind them. ‘C’mon, Carrots,’ he says, gruffness not quite covering the aching fondness in his voice, ‘let’s get you home.’

Sam sputters, performing his objection. ‘Carrots? How come I’m Judy?’

Barnes’ head tilts, his lips quirking upwards. ‘You’re an idealist, Sam, and you always see the best in people.’

Typical Goddamn Bucky Barnes, Sam thinks, distantly infuriated by how winded he feels at the heartfelt sincerity. ‘Nick Wilde is also an idealist,’ Sam objects and because two can play this game. ‘That’s a pretty big part of the story.’

Barnes starts the engine and his shoulders rise and fall. ‘Yeah, but he’s the cool one who covers it up with sarcasm and charisma.’

‘Wait, you can’t be openly idealistic and cool?’

A sharp, bright grin hits Sam right in the face. ‘You’re the one who said it.’

Barnes barely glances to check for other cars before peeling out of the parking spot at speed in a screech of rubber on concrete.

‘Show-off,’ Sam rasps at him.

Chapter Text

The day starts as it means to go on, in that it starts with something unexpected. 

Sam stares at the bowl of hot oatmeal and prods at the glistening pile of purplish gloop sitting in the middle of it. ‘What is that?’

‘Oatmeal,’ Barnes says, leaning on the breakfast bar opposite him and watching him with a serious, concerned look. It’s a lot at this time of the morning and that’s saying something considering that out of the two of them Sam is the morning person.

But.

This particular morning the inside of his throat is lined with razor blades, a metallic taste lying against the back of his tongue, and the outside of his throat is bruised and swollen. There’s a nagging ache in his right shoulder and the base of his spine feels as though someone has handily stamped on it. He had slept like the dead, the weight of sheer exhaustion pulling him down and it had been a blessedly dreamless sleep. He still feels like he’s been hit by a wrecking ball, even so.

He rolls his eyes, though, just to let Barnes know the precise level of annoying he’s being and builds a frown between his eyes. ‘I know that,’ he says. ‘I mean this.’ He prods at the gloop that’s actually more reddish than purplish now that he really looks at it. ‘What is this?’

‘Compote.’

He would honestly scream if it wouldn’t hurt his throat so much. Sam feels vibrations of impatience that are, he thinks, probably misplaced and it is 100% not Barnes’ fault that despite his deadened sleep last night his body is still protesting and he’s still tired and feeling wrung out and antsy and-

Yeah. He’s just looking to pick a fight. He pushes out a steadying breath, meets Barnes’ eyes and the expression he finds is knowing and sympathetic.

And that’s still a lot. 

Sam keeps up his demeanour of good cheer most of the time and he’s pretty damn good at it. It isn’t a lie, he is an optimist and yeah, okay, he does try to see the good in people but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t know that the good isn’t always there. But it is a kind of armour, something that reflects attention and makes him that bit harder to be actually seen.

Natasha had never been fooled, not from the start. Not that she’d ever said anything, but he’d see the way that she looked at him sometimes, green eyes solemn and wise, or sometimes during those desolate years when she would, wordlessly, creep into bed with him and they would curl into each other, breathing in the warmth and the sanctuary.

And he’s used to the belligerence of Bucky’s staring problem but this look is something else. This feels like he’s been stripped bare, nowhere to hide. And unlike Natasha, Bucky Barnes has no problem expressing his opinions on whatever it is he sees.

But in the meantime:

‘Since when did y’all have compote? I have been in your fridge, this was not in your fridge.’

Plenty of fresh food - fruit, vegetables, Bucky seems pretty committed to the whole 5-a-day thing - along with the leftover pho and the stupid amount of takeout.

‘I made it,’ Barnes says, folding mismatched arms on the breakfast bar.

‘You-’

The tearing in his throat is absolutely the result of the night before, the thing that makes his eyes sting.

‘You- you made it?’

‘It’s basically mashed up fruit, it’s not that complicated. You can’t eat solids, Sam.’ The reply comes with maddening calm. Barnes unfolds himself long enough to snag the paper that’s stuck to the fridge with a magnet and shakes it in Sam’s face. The discharge sheet from the hospital. ‘No solids,’ he repeats, placid. ‘It says so right here. Plus, y’know, vitamins and stuff, they’re important. And you need to use your steroidal throat spray when you wake up. Did you use your throat spray?’

Sam stares at him for long moments, the hum of Brooklyn traffic rising from beyond the window, fingers of pale yellow sunshine creeping across the floor towards the new rug sitting under the new coffee table. 

‘I used the spray.’

Barnes examines his face and then nods. ‘Good. Now eat your oatmeal.’ He puts a squeezy bottle of maple syrup on the counter and busies himself with the process of measuring out coffee beans to put in the grinder so the grinds can go in the coffee maker-

Sam squirts syrup at his oatmeal, stirs it all together. The consistency is a little gloopier than he’d usually fix for himself but the actual oats have the slightly rough texture that he prefers and it’s been made with milk and just the right pinch of salt. Against that the compote cuts through with a tart richness and the syrup lends its sweetness. 

One mouthful and Sam drives the thumb and forefinger of his left hand into the hollow of his eyes, pinching hard against the bridge of his nose.

‘Sam?’

Eyes smarting, he looks up, blinks against the blurriness. Barnes pushes his eyebrows up, a coffee mug in each hand, you good? left unspoken.

Sam nods. ‘This is good.’ Soft and soothing against his abused throat. ‘Thanks, man.’

Pink stains the high points of Barnes’ cheeks and he turns back to assembling the various parts of the fancy new coffee machine he’s acquired. Sam watches him move about the small kitchenette and it’s-

Sam tilts his head, thoughtful, chewing on his oatmeal. There’s something different, he thinks. Barnes looks the same: skinny jeans and henley, check; as yet un-styled bedhead, check; faintly grumpy pre-coffee crease in forehead, check. But there’s something.

There’s a lightness there, Sam decides eventually. Not the full blast sunny skies of Bucky’s most carefree, happy days where he seems to radiate a sweet, warm light. It’s more subtle, less blinding than that. It’s more… Sam rolls a mouthful of the tart-sweet compote around his mouth. It’s more as though a threatening storm has passed, leaving calm stillness in its wake with the tantalising possibility of brighter days beyond.

Damn, if this how he looks after a couple of hours with Sarah, Sam’s ready to strap on the wings, fly Barnes over to Midtown and drop him at Sarah’s feet.

Sarah, who is Sam’s sister. His baby sister. Not the Goddamn Barnes Whisperer, get a grip Wilson. Not to mention the whole Triangle of Awkward Yearning they’ve all got going on once you factor in actual Bucky and no, Sam is definitely not touching all of that.

A coffee mug gets set on the counter and Sam knows just by looking that it’s had precisely the right amounts of sugar and creamer added. Sam accepts it silently. There is a faint tiredness around Barnes’ eyes, though.

‘You get any sleep last night?’ Sam asks.

‘Some.’ Said into Barnes’ coffee mug. ‘Couldn’t really settle. Watched some movies.’

Sam's coffee is at the perfect point of sweet and strong, he discovers. ‘Anything good?’

A shrug. ‘Eh.’

Which is all that Sam is getting. 

Barnes takes some of his coffee, watching Sam over the rim. ‘How about you? You sleep any?’

Gritty feeling behind his eyes, weariness dragging heavy through his bones and that hollowed-out slightly spacey sensation that comes with too little sleep. ‘I’m fine,’ he says.

A ripple across Barnes’ face and the crease between his eyebrows deepens. ‘That’s usually my line.’

‘Oh, and don’t I know it!’ Accusing and Sam is immediately plunged into a thousand conversations before, during and after missions where Bucky has told him irritably I’m fine…

Sam blinks against the sting in his eyes, takes a little too much of his coffee and coughs against it slightly.

A familiar tilt of the head and the even more familiar thoughtful appraising look while Barnes drinks his own coffee. He sets the mug on the counter, palms placed flat on the surface and his lips push out faintly. ‘You should take it easy today, Sam.’

Sam snorts. ‘Yeah, right. Gonna take it easy while Bucky’s…’ His mouth works around words that don’t come. ‘You think Bucky would take it easy if it was the other way around? Huh? That what you gonna do?’

‘Bucky’s a super-soldier,’ Barnes states, solemn and unmoved by the prickliness in Sam’s voice. ‘And I’m a robot. It isn’t the same.’

‘Okay, fine. So, weak li’l regular human old me’ll just sit around watching Netflix all day. That it?’

Irritation flickers across Barnes’ face. ‘We have an intel dump to get through. Financials. Video feeds. Torres will be over here in a bit to get some of that started. So tell me what’s better: you go running around all over town chasing your tail for nothing, or you make the best use of your time resting up while chasing down intel that might give us a solid lead.’ His chin juts out. ‘We’ll find him. But you’re not gonna be any use to Bucky if you’re so exhausted you can’t stand up straight.’

Sam wants to get mad about it, wants the fight that’s been bubbling along all of his nerve-endings. Instead, he feels a breath huffed out down his nose and tilts his head back to catch Barnes’ gaze full on. ‘This you being Sergeant Barnes, XO?’

It’s met with an eye-roll but good humour tugs at the edges of the other man’s mouth. ‘If you like. Steve was also pretty lousy at taking some downtime when he needed it and that was when he was still just a skinny punk getting his nose busted every coupla weeks, so I got plenty of practice here, pal.’

It’s never not delightfully charming when Bucky goes all full old-school Brooklyn and it’s still the same when Barnes does it. Sam has the distinct impression that he’s being played but even with that knowledge he feels the wound-up belligerence start to bleed out of his shoulders.

‘Okay,’ he mutters, poking his spoon at the last of his oatmeal. When he looks up again there’s the warmth of a quietly pleased victory in Barnes’ face.

Sam scrubs at his eyes and allows himself the acknowledgement of stiff muscles and a dragging weariness. ‘Damn. Think maybe I can get Shuri to build a robot me? Y’know, like, CapBot. He can go out and save the world while I go fishing in Delacroix.’

Sam hears the words he’s just said and thinks, with a spear of sickening panic, too soon, but when he looks up at Barnes he’s met with thoughtful blue eyes that hold a flicker of quiet amusement.

‘Wasn’t that what these Life Model Decoy things were supposed to be for in the first place?’

‘Huh. I guess.’

The amusement deepens, creases radiating from the corners of Barnes’ eyes. ‘But what happens when, uh, CapBot decides that he also wants to go live the quiet life?’

Sam straightens, prepared to be irate with the apparent selfishness of his future potential robot self. ‘Aw, hell no. That self-absorbed jerk can get straight back to work. Ruining my fishing time? Fuck him.’

‘So, hypothetical robot you turns out to be a massive asshole - who’d have thought?’

Sam glares over the rim of his mug and gets a grin in return. 

‘You can probably eat scrambled eggs, right?’ Barnes says, pushing himself away from the counter and opening up the fridge. ‘You’ll still be off solids today - and I don’t want to hear any moaning!’

It’s a fluttery sort of feeling behind his ribs, something that’s halfway between a laugh and a sob and it almost hurts. The generous portion of oatmeal is still very present in Sam’s body and the last thing he either needs or wants is some scrambled Goddamn eggs.

He watches Barnes fuss around the kitchen, dishes being pulled out, the radio flicked on and a little quirk of pleasure across his face when Artie Shaw comes through - and fuck, but Sam has been spending way too much time with the Bionic Man if he can recognise Artie Shaw when he hears him. But still.

‘Yeah,’ Sam says. ‘Eggs’d be good.’

Breakfast has been cleared, Barnes has had an argument with Griot over whether or not one of the houseplants needs potting-on and Sam has taken another long, hot shower that he didn’t really need but thinks he may as well indulge in. He feels more awake, more loose-limbed and if the antsy feeling of needing to be out there doing something is still pricking under his skin it has receded to something more bearable.

He calls Sarah to wish her luck and she’s already on campus, a rush of noise and life behind her as she jostles around to hold her phone and the oversized cup of coffee. She looks a little more tired than she should but still excited and energetic, her dark eyes sparkling. For a moment it’s years ago, all of that bright flaring hope of infinite possibility before the world had been coloured by grief and subsumed by ash.

Then Barnes meanders back into the living room, hair now styled into the artful disarray that always makes Sam want to ruffle it, just to annoy him. He pauses when he sees the phone in Sam’s hand, Sarah’s face on the screen and he waves awkwardly.

‘Hey.’ One word somehow lost in the back of his throat.

Sam sees the catch lights in his sister’s eyes flare, something far too tender written into her face. ‘Hi, Jamie,’ she says, soft, and it’s all so horribly, painfully intimate that for a moment Sam can’t bear to look at either of them.

Barnes takes himself back into the bedroom, bare feet silent on the floor and Sam finishes talking to Sarah, meeting her worried admonitions to be careful with a cheerful reassurance he doesn’t entirely feel but plasters on the smile over the cracks anyway.

Not that it actually reassures Sarah he’s sure; she’s always read him better than anyone and the sharp, searching stare she subjects him to before ending the call is one he’s seen too many times before.

‘Told Sarah we should all meet up for dinner later, if she’s up for it.’

Barnes nods. ‘Right.’ His throat bobs, anxious despite the carefully neutral expression he wears.

Sam sighs.

Torres arrives carrying two laptop cases, a few other blocky black bags draped about his person. He practically hums with suppressed excitement, wildness edging his eyes that suggests a man recently recovered from a fairly intense freak out. 

‘Sergeant Barnes… Wow, you really do look identical! That-that’s wild. I thought you might look a bit more robot-y, y’know? Sorta uncanny valley but you don’t!’ He examines Barnes, grin broad and gleaming. ‘Do you process things super-fast? Like, can you calculate stuff a-and pull up intel like, well, not like Google, I don’t mean that exactly, but yeah, kinda like a computer?’

There’s a heavy silence while Barnes blinks at him and Torres’ smile starts to dim at the edges.

‘No, kid,’ Barnes drawls, when he has apparently deemed that Torres is as close to a meltdown as necessary. ‘And I don’t have a USB port in the back of my neck, either.’

Torres nods. ‘Yeah. No. Right. O-of course.’

Barnes’ lips twitch minutely. ‘I’ll give you a hand setting up,’ he says, removing the laptops from Torres’ death grip and steering him towards the coffee table with a heavy hand on his shoulder that almost makes the kid’s knees buckle. He throws a wink Sam’s way, which Sam greets with an eye roll.

The next eruption of barely-contained ecstasy comes with Torres’ introduction to Griot and Sam is pretty sure that the AI is preening (is that even a thing for a synthetic consciousness?) under the flattery of Torres’ genuine delight and curiosity.

They settle in after that. The laptops get hooked up to a mobile server, a handful of external hard drives and something Torres calls a secure terminal, all bearing the Stark Tech insignia and that clearly came courtesy of Rhodes. Once the kimoyo beads are, somehow - Sam stops asking - added to the mix they have what is probably one of the most powerful and sophisticated computer systems in the world right there in Bucky’s living room.

Sam’s never been great at this part, he’ll be the first to admit. Acting on intel given rather than being the one ferreting it out; poring over reams of documentation to find the unlocking factor - he can feel his patience start to fray even thinking about it, restlessness running through his body. The closest he’d come was those years chasing down the Winter Soldier, going over the available files for some snippet, but even then it had mostly been active, physically scouting out old bases and warehouses, talking to people, finding himself in one tiny, shitty apartment after another. Always with an abandoned, half-lived in quality but always some evidence of an organising principle, always relatively clean and tidy even if the invariably peeling paint and water-stained ceilings were dingy and borderline hazardous.

So there are reasons why Sam was never a spy.

Despite Bucky’s stated preference for taking the direct approach, he’s actually pretty good at the whole intelligence-gathering, has the eye for detail and the cool detachment that means he can make cognitive leaps and subtle associations that Sam would probably miss on his own. So. Sam leaves Barnes and Torres to it for the most part.

He takes another trawl through the meagre transcripts of the interviews with their DC terrorists who had been transferred to Rikers. It makes for fairly short reading and doesn’t yield much outside all of them having done time before for assorted, cumulative misdemeanours, that they aren’t big fans of the resettlement and refugee camps but not for any reasons that include empathy or just common basic human dignity.

They are big fans of Captain America, but only as long as he’s blond and blue-eyed but even that isn’t a dealbreaker, just as long he’s incontrovertibly White.

Sam closes the last of the files, sits in the solitary armchair that Bucky had condescended to buy and stares at a point in the middle-distance, feels a familiar rush of anger race across his skin, the tight bitterness sitting at the base of his tongue. His fingers dig into the arms of the chair, fabric taut under his grip. When he looks up he finds Barnes looking back at him, calm and assessing, and it doesn’t seem all that long ago that it would have got Sam all riled up, that he would have returned it with a stubborn belligerence that would have left both of them sitting with the embers of silent frustration. Without the defensive edge that Bucky had brought to those early encounters, Sam has come to recognise that all-too-seeing gaze for what it really is: Bucky looking for assurance that if things aren’t fine, that they are at least okay, that the person he has decided to devote his time and his attention and his affection to are hanging on in there.

Sam nods and Barnes still holds his gaze for a beat before the lines of his face lose their harshness and he turns back to the screens and Torres’ excitable debate with Griot.

Lunch is easy enough to pull together, what with the copious amount of food in Bucky’s fridge. It ends up being an eclectic mix of leftover Lebanese take-out and Vietnamese pho - ‘I think they call this fusion,' Barnes says, solemn, mischief lurking behind his eyes and Sam is once again left pondering how, despite all the jokes, James Buchanan Barnes in his various forms seems so effortlessly at home in the twenty-first century at times - but it all gets eaten while Barnes and Torres bicker amiably over algorithms and triple word scores, which are two different conversations but Sam slides in and out of them mainly to note Barnes’ amused indulgence and Torres’ shy enthusiasm. 

The hours slip into the diffuse golden light and lengthening shadows of late afternoon and at one point Sam shakes himself to discover that he’s fallen asleep on the Goddamn couch and Barnes and Torres have migrated to the breakfast bar, dark heads bent close together, while they examine whatever it is they’re looking at on one of the laptops. Sam had definitely not pulled a blanket over himself, but one has been tucked around him and he works the fabric between his fingers, the soft weave in a muted, glowing shade of amber that feels like a little piece of Wakandan sunshine in Bucky’s much improved but still fairly spartan apartment. There’s a warm scent of spice on the air, something sitting happily on a low heat on the stove.

Across the room Barnes’ head turns, catches Sam’s eye and Sam braces himself for some smart comment about his impromptu forty winks and gets: ‘There’s coffee.’

Sam takes his time shaking out the blanket, settling it soft over the couch and keeps his eyes on Barnes. ‘Thanks,’ he says. His throat still feels a little thick and rough, the outside still tender to the touch.

‘Will you leave yourself alone?’ Barnes has settled into a glare now. Sam glares back.

‘Man, you gotta know how that sounds.’

Torres smothers a laugh, turning it into a cough behind his fist and keeps his eyes on the long lines of text on the screen. Sam ambles over, stretching out the twinge at the base of his spine and grabbing the coffee that Barnes pushes towards him.

‘So,’ Sam starts after a moment to savour the coffee and the gentle, warming heat against his abused throat, ‘what’ve you got?’

‘Oh, there are so many shell accounts and transfers!’ Torres says and sounds weirdly happy about it. ‘But we’ve made real progress.’

‘We nothing.’ Barnes, all gruff at the edges and he jerks his chin at Torres. ‘It was all him, I just plugged stuff in and pressed buttons when told.’

Torres’ eyes go wide and round, a dark flush rising up his neck and cheeks. ‘Oh, no, that’s not- I mean, I couldn’t have done it withou-’

‘Learn how to take a compliment, kid,’ Barnes instructs him.

‘Yes, sir.’ It’s said with a grin this time.

Barnes’ eyebrows go up. ‘Is that sass, I detect?’ To Sam: ‘Did you hear him sassing?’

‘I did,’ Sam confirms, drinks more of his coffee.

‘Well done.’ Barnes bumps his shoulder against Torres’, one of those gruff affectionate gestures that Sam has been on the receiving end of many times. ‘You’ll go far.’

The younger man ducks his head, the grin broadening across his sunny face and there’s more than a hint of shy delight in it. ‘Anyway, we’ve got a pretty good hold on the financial and corporate trail for Praetorian Electronics.’

‘Is it actually a real company?’

‘Well… kinda?’ Torres screws his face up, almost apologetic. ‘I mean, technically it is. It was a real company called Jackson’s Electronics but that became defunct during the Blip. Now it’s a subsidiary of a parent company and the name got changed to Praetorian about a year ago.’

Sam leans his hip against the counter, fingers tearing off a corner of a loose sheet of newspaper because Bucky doesn’t think news is news unless its leaves ink on his fingers. He folds and refolds it. ‘Anything significant in the name change?’

‘Unclear,’ Barnes says. ‘There’s a biker gang calling themselves the Praetorian Brotherhood because, y’know, delusions of grandeur.’

‘They’re anti-immigrant,’ Torres adds. ‘White supremacists.’

‘Nazis. ‘Cos I’ve really missed those guys.’ Barnes voice is dry, glowering shadows already starting to gather across his face. ‘They like to kill off what they call undesirables as a spectator-sport. Guess it might make it even more fun if they have someone real good at killing doing the killing.’ His voice is horribly steady. Detached.

The scrap of paper scrunches in Sam’s hand. Barnes’ head jerks away before Sam can say anything. Torres looks between them, gaze faltering and he looks puzzled by the sudden tension.

‘But, uh, but we don’t know if they have any involvement,’ Torres says, slow. ‘Their base is a dive bar in Nevada… Maybe worth looking into?’

Sam scrubs at his face, frustration and fear jangling along his nerves. Road trip to Nevada, at least they’d be fucking doing something- He feels Barnes’ repressive gaze landing heavy on him and straightens up, returning it. Torres fidgets, uncertain and a little wary. 

‘We can get intel from the local police department before we waste time haring off to Reno.’

‘It’s Las Vegas,’ Torres mutters and Barnes huffs out a soft laugh.

‘Vegas, then. Not goin’ there, either. Right, Sam?’

For a moment Sam wants to fight it. Maybe this is what they need to do. Maybe this is what they should have done from the start, just tear through every shitty crime group, every lab both public and private, every potential facility until they find him.

And how long would that take? the rational part of him asks, reasserting itself. Running around breaking a few heads might make Sam feel better but after a few weeks or months when they still hadn’t found Bucky? When they had to start all over again when it might already be too late? There’s a reason people follow the money.

Sam nods. ‘Right. No Las Vegas road trip.’

Barnes holds his gaze for a moment and then points himself at Torres. ‘The parent company,’ Barnes says.

‘Oh, uh, yeah… Parent company is pretty much a shell corporation,’ Torres says, giving himself a little shake and looking back at his monitor. ‘And get this: it was set up through a firm called Midas Investment and the flag of convenience was issued by the Latverian government. Latveria! And, I mean… You’ve heard the rumours, right? Doombots?’

Torres is back to his cloud-free sunniness, his dark eyes gleaming with excitement. Even Barnes looks faintly amused and not-so faintly indulgent.

‘I’ve never seen one. Never even met anybody who’s seen one,’ Barnes says. ‘And trust me, kid, I’ve seen a lot.’

‘Doesn’t mean they don’t exist,’ Torres says stubbornly and Barnes actually smiles, shaking his head.

‘Okay, okay.’ Sam waves his hands. ‘Do we know who’s footing the bill for all this?’

‘Ah, okay!’ Torres’ fingers fly across the keyboard and he pulls up another set of records, tiny print that Sam has no hope of seeing from this distance and there’s no way he’s starting to squint at the screen. ‘So, trying to get through the Latverian banking system is no joke but Griot was amazing at getting us through the firewalls-’

‘Thank you, Lieutenant.’

‘Oh, no, thank you.’

‘Joaquín…’ Sam says, a warning note.

‘Sorry. Okay, so we have account numbers but not all of the accounts have names attached at the moment, we’re still working on that. But, we can see where the money came from originally and it- Uh. It…’ 

It looks like guilt on the young man’s face. He takes his lower lip between his teeth.

‘It was drained from an old HYDRA account,’ Barnes says and the shadows have swept back in.

Sam takes a moment, working hard to keep his face neutral. ‘Okay. I mean, there was a lot of that about.’ It wins a flicker of lightness from Barnes’ grim face.

‘It’s not looking good here, Sam.’

‘Maybe not,’ Sam allows. ‘But we might actually have some solid leads here, something we can leverage. You guys have done great work.’

A soft noise, like someone clearing their throat. 

‘You too, Griot,’ Sam adds.

‘Still wishing you had a robot you?’ Barnes asks him, the strain apparent in his voice and the tense lines of his body even though he’s clearly trying to push it all down.

‘Oh, that would be cool!’ Torres says, happily, starting to close down the various programmes he has running. ‘But I guess I can see why they went with a Sergeant Barnes robot- Not that I want it happen to either of you, I mean, not without permission, ‘cos that is really messed up. I just mean it’s understandable-’

‘Yeah, kid, we all get why.’

Startled at the harshness tearing through Barnes’ soft voice, Torres blinks. Sam feels a rising disappointment in yet another reduction of Bucky’s value that must show in his face because Torres looks stricken when he glances at Sam.

‘I- I mean- Because Sergeant Barnes is enhanced and you’re not, so-’ He licks lips that have gone dry. ‘So it would be real obvious if you were suddenly super-strong.’

Sam rears back a fraction. ‘That-’ He glances at Barnes and sees the same surprise make its way in wary slowness across his face. ‘Hadn’t actually thought of it like that,’ Sam adds.

The bewilderment is clear in Torres’ worried expression and Sam feels the disappointment erased by a wave of affection for Torres and his good-natured optimism. It isn’t naïvety, just that he’s still young enough to take people as he finds them. There’s a healthy frown building across his fresh young face. ‘Wh-what did you think I meant?’ He looks genuinely worried about the answer.

‘Nothing,’ Barnes tells him. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

Which doesn’t fool anyone but Torres lets it lie, contenting himself with throwing worried glances in Barnes’ direction every few seconds.

Sam checks in with Sarah while the other two pack up. Her new course-mates are all sticking together, heading out for dinner and her with them and when Sam relays the information Barnes smiles, soft and a little wistful.

‘Good,’ he says. ‘She deserves it.’ And then lightly bumps a fist against Torres’ shoulder. ‘You staying for dinner? Actually, where are you staying?’ Eyes sweep the small apartment critically. ‘There’s not a lot of space but we could make something work.’

‘Oh, wow, no I- Dinner would be great, yeah, but I, uh, I have a friend in Bushwick and they’re, uh- Yeah, I’m crashing at theirs.’

For a fairly innocuous piece of information, the imparting of it has turned Torres’ face a deep shade of red. Sam feels his lips twitch.

‘This friend got a name? And a number? In case we need to get hold of you,’ Sam adds innocently. ‘Might have a computer-related emergency or something.’

‘Aw, c’mon, cut him some slack.’ Barnes has his arms folded, head tilted back and his eyes are mischief-bright. ‘First ever sleepover is a big deal in a kid’s life.’

‘It’s not a sleepover!’ Torres protests.

‘Ah…’ Barnes nods wisely. Then whisper-shouts at Sam: ‘Not doing much sleeping.’

‘Oh my God…’ The burn across Torres’ cheeks is starting look in need of medical intervention. ‘Assholes,’ he grumbles, ‘you’re both assholes.’

Barnes grins, delighted. ‘Gotta give it more feeling, kid, or it’s not a real insult.’

‘I know how to insult people!’

The uncomplicated silliness of it all finally gets to Sam; or maybe it’s the way that he can see Barnes biting on the inside of his lip and the way his shoulders have a tremor. ‘That-that’s a really weird flex, man,’ Sam tells him and his voice cracks, laughter breaking through. It’s enough to set Barnes off, even if he does try to disguise it as a cough behind his metal fist.

‘That wasn’t a-’ Torres begins his mortified objection but collapses into something closed to giggles, his cheeks dimpling. ‘Man,’ he says, wheezing only very slightly, ‘it’s gonna be crazy when we have two Sergeant Barneses. Barnesii? Anyway, it’ll be so weird. But, like, in a good way?’ His head tilts. He looks like an inquisitive puppy, Sam thinks and feels the edge being taken off his good mood.

‘Are you gonna be in the field together?’ Torres continues, oblivious. ‘Or are you gonna tag team it?’

Sam braces himself, tries to shoot a silent, pleading look at Barnes but the blue eyes are turned away, fixed on the young lieutenant and his eager, guileless face.

‘Haven’t got that far ahead of ourselves yet, kid,’ Barnes says, with his usual measure of gruffness but also with his usual measure of quiet indulgence and Sam blinks at it. Maybe it’s just for Joaquín’s sake because no matter how much of a hard-assed front Bucky Barnes puts on, he’s a soft touch under it; but Sam can’t help but hope that maybe maybe maybe.

‘Oh, of course,’ Torres is saying, brow furrowed and his eyes all serious. ‘We’ll get him back. I mean, not that you’re not great but, y’know, I don’t want anything bad happening to Sergeant Barnes.’

‘I know, kid.’ Barnes’ voice is soft and a smile flickers at the corners of his mouth, his face still lightened in a way it hasn’t been since this whole thing started.

Sam feels his shoulders peel themselves down from around his ears and he’s grinning so hard his cheeks ache with it.

When Torres has departed for his not-sleepover - all of the bags of stupidly expensive tech stashed in the closet by Bucky’s front door along with Bucky’s winter coat and heavy boots and, to Sam’s bemused delight, a tennis racquet - a familiar sense of calm descends on the small Brooklyn apartment.

Sam volunteers for the washing up which is the least he can do, he thinks, not that he’d tell Barnes that just because the spice-laden pot that had been simmering on the stove for the best part of the afternoon had turned out to be jambalaya. It’s exhaustion and worry that’s making all of Sam’s usually carefully-contained emotions erupt far too close to the surface. He tells himself. Coming from Louisiana, jambalaya - like gumbo - is a deeply personal dish, it has infinite variations and any one version can probably be pinned down to one household in the entirety of the state. The version that Barnes had served up was a little looser in its consistency, not quite as generous in its spices (but not bad for an ancient-ass White boy) than Sam is used to. But it’s a clear echo of Sarah’s skilled, loving hand and the whole of it, the not-quite homeliness that still feels like home in this place that also, weirdly, has come to feel like home and the care and effort that had gone into all of that-

So, yes, maybe it makes Sam feel a little watery around the edges and maybe he’s glad of his hands in sudsy water with the radio for company while Barnes FaceTimes with Cass because everything is feeling like a lot right now and it’s a lot that he hadn’t bargained on.

Sam has got himself more or less under control by the time Barnes has finished with Cass and the dishes have been dried and put away and he’s pretty sure that his face is not displaying anything of his latest minor meltdown. Or not too much of it, anyway. Barnes treats Sam to one of his penetrating stares but seems if not happy at least reassured by what he finds; he jerks his chin slightly towards Sam and says,

‘Griot has something he wants us to see.’

Griot, it turns out, has been quietly scanning CCTV feeds around Columbia and the surrounding streets from the day Bucky was taken.

‘I believe I have identified the van that was used in the transportation of Ingcuka Emhlophe.’

Which makes it all sound very civilised, Sam thinks. He’s jammed next to Bucky on the couch and they both lean forward to peer at the screen of Bucky’s laptop where Griot is playing a video. Washed out colours and a high angle but the picture is clear: early evening on the side street with the garage access to the building where Gupta and Petersen work. Sam keeps his eyes on the dark mouth of the garage until an unremarkable black van with tinted windows noses out, makes a right turn and eases up the street until it’s out of view.

‘What makes you think it’s this van?’ Sam asks.

‘It is the only vehicle of sufficient size to carry one of the cargo crates that you surmise was used,’ Griot says and the calm of his pleasant, modulated voice is eerily jarring. ‘Also, the number plates of the other cars that exited are all registered with existing members of staff at the university.’

‘I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess that these plates are fake?’ Barnes asks.

‘They are.’

Sam huffs out a breath, leans back against the couch and the small mountain of throw cushions that Bucky has acquired. So many of the damn things now it’s like Bucky is belligerently stockpiling them as a riposte to Sam’s nagging him to make his place more comfortable, Goddamn. 

Griot had tracked the van making its way across the city, through a series of turnpikes before turning north. The sightings become less frequent, the footage scratchy and glitching at times as they hit the less densely-populated areas with fewer security cameras. The final feed comes through from a gas station about a half-hour north of Yonkers. An old Roxxon sign with half the letters flickering and the remainder not coming on at all. The van stops at one of the diesel pumps, the driver slides out and they get a clear shot of his face. Griot freezes the image, zooms in. Dark hair, dark eyes, the sort of unremarkable guy your eyes slide over. But there is a horrible familiarity about the face and Sam feels the squeeze around his throat. ‘Is it-’ Sam clears the croak out of his voice. ‘Is it just me or does he look like-’

‘It’s not just you,’ Barnes says flat.

‘I will access all available databases for facial recognition,’ Griot says.

There’s a thoughtful tilt to Barnes’ head. ‘Maybe start with military records.’

Sam twists, his face creasing. ‘Why?’

‘Those security robot things, they fought like they had military training. Maybe this guy isn’t just the, uh, face model.’

Bad guy or no, Sam would be pretty offended if a rendering of his face had gone so badly awry and says so. Barnes twitches up an amused smile.

‘Yeah, well, I’m guessing the looks aren’t the priority.’ Mischief hints in the creases around his eyes. ‘And not everyone’s as vain as you.’

‘It is not vanity if it’s true,’ Sam states loftily and ignores Barnes’ snorting snigger. ‘Besides, I’m not the guy who spends most of his disposable income on haircare products.’

‘Bold words from a man with barely any hair.’

Sam sputters. ‘Hey, all the hair on my head is exactly where it’s supposed to be.’

Guileless innocence and utter mayhem are blended in the broad grin that greets that. Sam thinks about the disclaimer made to Torres about a potential future and he feels the question rise, words pressing behind his teeth.

He presses it back down, keeps it there so when he goes to bed he falls asleep with a tenuous hope.

By early afternoon of the following day they have determined that attempting to get a name to go with the accounts that have been set up with Midas Investments as an intermediary will be arduous at best and that’s if they have the official authorisation to go with it.

They do not have official authorisation.

What they do have is a handful of facts, conjectures and the endless shifting sands of hope and disappointment. 

‘So. Midas seems … shady,’ Barnes comments, when yet another company with a tangential link to Praetorian Electronics turns out to be a shell corporation. On his laptop a video is playing, a corporate walk-through that’s all soft dissolves showing the expensive suite of offices Midas occupies in a gleaming skyscraper in the Financial District.

‘Oh, they shady as hell,’ Sam says. He works out the kink in his neck. He’s had a full day of hanging out in Bucky’s apartment, two consecutive nights of deep, uninterrupted sleep and so much food shoved into him that he’s starting to think that Bucky or Barnes or both have missed a calling and should be thinking about opening up a restaurant. Or a food truck, probably more his style. Sarah’s always talking about getting a proper truck up and running and-

Nope. Not going there.

Sam rolls his shoulders, cocks his head and fixes his eyes on Barnes. ‘Feel like heading Downtown and poking some Wall Street assholes?’

As if he needs to ask. It won’t really get them anywhere but Barnes grins at him anyway and there is something appropriately wolfish in it.

‘Fuck yes.’

The offices of Midas Investments on the fortieth floor of an Art Deco skyscraper on Wall Street afford spectacular views across the city, New York pale and sparkling in the glinting late-afternoon sunlight slanting across the expensive cream carpets, soft leather sofas and pale beech furniture.

Sam feels out of place, which is nothing on how out of place Barnes looks with his all-black ensemble of skinny jeans and leather jacket, ferocious scowl and the fully exposed length of his vibranium arm gleaming darkly against their tasteful surrounds.

The office that they’re shown into by a startled looking intern with a ponytail of shiny honey-blonde hair gives them a vantage point of the New York Stock Exchange and Sam admires it for a moment.

He is probably also meant to admire the apparent occupant of said office: Nathalie Mendoza, beautiful legs lengthened by the sky-high patent-leather heels with the blood-red soles that match the colour of her lipstick and the tailored suit so perfectly fitted to her body that she might have been sewn into it. She sits behind her desk and offers them a friendly smile that doesn’t reach her fine, dark eyes.

Long nails tap against the piece of paper that Sam has slid across her desk and her head tilts. ‘What is this?’ A faint accent. South African, maybe, Sam thinks.

‘Names of companies,’ Sam says, cordial. 

‘I see that. And?’ Eyebrows perfectly arched, lips slightly parted.

‘Companies that were set up with the help of your firm.’

‘Is that an Avengers-level event?’ She manages to sound faintly amused. ‘If so, you’ll have to talk to half the businesses in the district. It’s what we do.’

Sam feels his cheeks ache with keeping the non-smile smile fixed on his face. ‘But yours is the only firm to have set up these particular companies.’

‘We don’t set them up,’ she says, harshness pressing behind her words and her eyes sharpen. ‘We simply facilitate a deal. That’s what our clients pay us for.’

‘And I bet they pay plenty,’ Barnes says, leather squeaking on leather as he lounges in his chair, the insolent lines of his spread-out predator pose on full display.

‘Is that a crime?’

Barnes pulls his lips back in the approximation of a smile. ‘Guess that depends.’

She pushes herself back into her chair, crosses one leg over the other and the slit in her skirt reveals a length of taut gym-honed thigh. ‘I don’t know what it is you’re expecting me to tell you.’ She looks between them, apparently at ease except for the evident lines of tension running along her shoulders and down her straight spine. ‘Our relationships with our clients are privileged, so unless you have a warrant there is nothing that I can say here. Besides, these companies are registered in Latveria. Even if there has been some criminal activity on their part, it has nothing to do with us.’

‘You seem to know an awful lot about them off the top of your head.’

Her smile is brittle. ‘That’s my job.’

‘You do a lot of business with companies registered in Latveria?’ Sam asks, as though he doesn’t already know the answer. The majority of the companies that Midas have dealings with are registered in Latveria and all of them are so blandly innocuous that they are obviously fronts.

‘It isn’t uncommon for a company to have flags of convenience from a foreign territory. Latveria has very generous tax allowances that make it very appealing as a base for registration.’

‘Not to mention no extradition treaty with the US,’ Sam says.

Her smile widens, something of condescension in the creases around her eyes. ‘I majored in economics, Mister Wilson, not international law or political science.’

Barnes has been tracking the movement of bodies beyond the glass walls of Nathalie’s office; mismatched fingers lace together in his lap and he turns a look of mild curiosity on her. ‘Lotta people carrying guns around here for a bunch of economists.’

Her shoulders spread out, her breasts pushing up and she lifts her chin. ‘Well, I’m not armed, Sergeant Barnes. You’re welcome to search me.’

His eyes move over her, slow. It isn’t a lascivious look, no heat of desire in it. Sam cuts his eyes sideways at Barnes and already knows that look: it is appraising and detached and cold and Sam’s seen the clammy fear rise in the people subjected to it countless times before. Nathalie Mendoza is no different. Her coy smile stutters, her cheeks paling until the peachy blush dusted on her cheeks sits stark against her skin. Fear in her eyes.

‘Look, if you think you’ve got something to report to the SEC, go right ahead. We abide by all Federal regulations.’ There’s a roughness in her voice now.

‘But not many moral ones,’ Barnes states, dry.

‘That’s rich, coming from you.’

Barnes gives her his least pleasant smile and her face quivers, impotent anger mixing with the fear.

‘I reckon we’re probably done here,’ Sam states, pushing himself up out of the expensive leather and chrome chair. ‘Ms Mendoza.’ He gives her a courteous nod and she peels stricken eyes from Barnes, swallows against a seemingly dry mouth.

‘That achieved nothing,’ Barnes remarks as they eject themselves back out onto the sidewalk and Sam rolls the taste of corporate hypocrisy around his mouth.

‘We’re just rattling the cage. See what bites.’ Sam wonders vaguely how long it will take.

‘You’re mixing your metaphors again,’ Barnes complains.

Unsurprisingly, it is not long before the first bite.

The call comes in from Rhodes when Sam and Barnes are camped out in a plush red diner booth, bickering amiably over Barnes’ ongoing larcenous attacks on Sam’s pile of fries.

‘So,’ Rhodes says, ‘those nice people up on Capitol Hill aren’t happy that a pair of Avengers have been harassing those poor innocent working stiffs down on Wall Street.’

Sam grins, meets Barnes’ eyes with their amused glint, his enhanced hearing picking up Rhodes’ end of the conversation.

‘Anyone in particular not happy?’ Sam asks.

‘Senator Robert Callahan. Think he’d like you tarred and feathered, brother.’

Sam puts his eyes on Barnes. ‘Ever heard of this asshole?’

Barnes shakes his head, has his phone out and is scrolling through it. ‘Doesn’t mean he wasn’t HYDRA. Or isn’t.’ He glances up sharp. ‘He sits on the Senate Committee on Armed Services.’

Which comes as a surprise to precisely no-one. 

‘Any links between Callahan and Midas?’ Sam jams his phone against his ear, shutting out the cheerful buzz in the busy diner.

‘Nothing as yet. I’ve put Torres on it.’ A pause. ‘You two watch your backs.’

‘Always,’ Sam tells him. 

Across the table, Barnes is chewing on the inside of his cheek, his meal abandoned. ‘Callahan’s on a sub-committee looking at cybersecurity. Wanna guess what their latest round of discussions was on?’

Sam sighs against the headache building behind his eyes. ‘I’m gonna go with robotics and AI.’

‘Give that man a star.’ Barnes wipes his fingers on a napkin, balls it up and dumps it on his plate. ‘Y’know, when I was a kid the idea of a shiny future with skyscrapers and robots and everything automated sounded pretty great.’

‘Brave new world.’ Sam picks up one of his fries, drops it and pushes his plate away. ‘You’re still just pissed there aren’t any flying cars.’

Barnes snorts, one corner of his mouth turning up. ‘You’re actually not wrong. Future’s a big disappointment on that score.’

An even bigger disappointment comes approximately twenty minutes later when they both receive alerts on their phones.

There’s a terrorist attack in progress against one of the displaced persons camps in Central Park.

The always-busy Midtown traffic is gridlocked when Sam and Barnes arrive. They get waved through the hastily-erected cordon by a harried-looking traffic cop and make their way to where the mobile command centre has been set up at Columbus Circle. The darkening sky over Central Park is stained orange by flame; smoke and cordite rising on the air, along with gunshots and frightened yells. 

The officer standing solidly in the middle of the rushing bodies and radio chatter coming over numerous open channels is calm and detached, giving orders with an unhurried briskness. Tawny hair cut short against her darker skin, Captain Benkari takes them in thoughtfully.

‘Not used to Avengers showing up as first responders,’ she says and her tone is observant rather than antagonistic.

Sam holds up empty hand, lets them drop. ‘We got an alert from Colonel Rhodes. If we’d just be in the way, we can go. If you can use us or just need   two extra pairs of hands, we’re here.’

Her lips press together, flattening into a line and then she nods.

‘It’s a large area with a lot of moving targets. We’re trying to get a read on who are the civilians, who are the displaced persons, who are the terrorists and who are the Army.’

Sam blinks. ‘Army here already?’ 

He hadn’t seen any Army personnel carriers. 

Benkari smiles thinly. ‘There was a small group doing some kinda training exercise in the park out near The Ramble. I’ve been liaising with their CO but comms have been a bit, uh, patchy. Major Evans wasn’t countin’ on this sorta thing, but then who is?’

Evans… Sam grimaces, because the day just keep getting better and better. He feels Barnes shift beside him and almost feels the displeasure roiling off him.

‘How are your visuals?’ Barnes asks.

‘We sent in some drones but they got knocked out pretty quick. We think these guys might be using an EMP or something like that to take out our comms and aerial support.’ She runs a hand through her cropped hair. ‘We’re pretty much flying blind here.’

Sam grins. ‘Hey, I’m used to that.’

She puts up wry eyebrows at him.

‘Besides,’ Sam continues, ‘I have drones and a HUD that can stand up to an EMP.’

‘Oh?’ Her head tilts and her gaze is assessing, just a hint of curiosity at the edges. ‘One of the benefits of being an Avenger?’

‘Something like that.’ Sam keeps the friendly, reassuring grin in place until Benkari blows out a breath and nods. 

‘Okay,’ she says. ‘We need recon and a line on the perps, try and flush ‘em out. What intel we have says they’re in basic black tac gear and working in pairs. Probably military training from their formations.’

‘Sounds familiar,’ Barnes mutters.

Sam nods grimly and suits up.

Sam sends the Redwing drones on a patrol route, keeping to a low altitude and hugging the tree-line. The sky is still light enough that the park lights don’t offer effective illumination, but the sun has dipped below the horizon and everything is tinged with a steely darkness that blurs outlines and distorts perceptions. The feeds start coming through almost immediately: part of the settlement is on fire; people who presumably are the targets running in every direction, confused and panicked; other shapes moving in pairs, systematic, and the flare of a weapon being discharged, an energy signature that isn’t recognised by the drones.

‘Pincer movement?’ Barnes’ voice is low and quiet.

‘You head west, I’ll circle east,’ Sam confirms.

‘Copy that.’ 

They split up once they hit the main paths running through the park: Barnes melting into the blue-grey shadows and Sam, moving cautiously, keeps the arm with shield strapped to it tight across his chest. He sends one of the drones to shadow Barnes, keeps the other hovering a few feet above his own head and slightly in front, the feed images playing on the edges of his HUD display. They’ll send out alerts as the threat assessments change and Sam has barely gone a few yards before a ping is sent by his drone, seconds before Sam hears rustling from the undergrowth. Too large for any of the park animal life; Sam keeps the shield up, braces himself and turns on the light on his HUD, using it as a flashlight, just as a large body stumbles onto the path.

Sam gets the impression of a big guy, crew cut, tattoos on well-developed biceps; he’s wearing a camo vest and khaki shorts. The man throws up one arm, an automatic gesture shielding his eyes from the brilliant white light. And then more bodies tumble behind him, a handful of men and women, all in work-out clothes.

They stare at Sam and then the big guy says, ‘Oh, thank fuck!’

Sam feels his brow furrow. ‘You guys okay?’

‘We were doing boot camp,’ a woman says, swinging blonde ponytail, blade thin and her eyes look slightly manic. ‘And then, like, the park blew up?’

No park in America, Sam is sure, is safe from ex-service personnel leading a group of anxious city slickers through burpees and push-ups. ‘Okay,’ he nods. ‘You, uh-’

‘Kyle.’

‘Kyle, right. Time to draw on that orienteering, right? You get these people outta here.’

Kyle’s throat bobs. ‘Uh… Yeah, I, uh, I never even finished basic training, man…’

‘What?’ The blonde glares at him. ‘You said you were a sergeant!’

‘Not now, Andrea!’

Sam closes his eyes momentarily. ‘Okay. See this path right here? You follow this, turn left when you get to the intersection and carry on straight. That’ll get you to the perimeter, there’s a responder team there.’

They file past him, Andrea’s voice raised in constant complaint. 

Sam pushes down the incipient irritation that comes with the thought - not for the first time - that their job would be a lot easier without pain in the ass innocent bystanders. 

He presses on. He can start to hear the crackle of flame, the air growing heavy and oppressive. Bursts of gunfire and, bizarrely, streaks of blue flash against the garish orange hanging low over the horizon. Sam touches his comm.

‘Barnes. You seen those blue flashes?’

A burst of static and then Barnes voice comes through.

‘Don’t engage, Sam. Hang back. You hear me?’

Terse and clipped but there’s something else behind Barnes’ words and it’s a moment before Sam identifies what it is. It’s a pulse of fear in Barnes’ voice and Sam feels ice slink across his stomach because out in the field Bucky Barnes isn’t scared of a single Goddamn thing. Sam taps into the drone feed. There’s a knot of people in the clearing up ahead and Sam breaks into a light jog, still watching the images projecting into his visor. Three people bunched together and then a forth figure strides towards them, stops, raises what looks like a rifle and there’s a bright blast of energy. Sam sees the corresponding blue light up ahead of them.

The three figures are gone. He checks the feed. No bodies on the ground, they’re just … gone.

This is not the time for an existential crisis, even if Sam can feel one hovering relentlessly on the edges of his consciousness. Sam’s real good at compartmentalising and he does it now with ruthless efficiency and moves forward into the now empty clearing. No signs of life visible and that assessment is confirmed by Redwing. Sam sprints across the space, takes shelter under a press of trees and feels the smoke on the air catch against his throat. He taps his comm again. 

‘I’m on the edge of the main clearing by the camp. I’m going in.’

Barnes’ voice, breathless snaps back at him. ‘What the fuck did I just say, Wilson? Do not-’ The words are lost in a roar of anger. 

On the feed Sam sees two figures less than five yards ahead, both armed but both have weapons loose at their sides. Amateurs, Sam thinks derisively, and uses the thrusters to propel himself forward, shield held up and out and he crashes into the two figures, knocking them over and dropping himself neatly onto the grass. Two swift blows puts them both out and Sam grabs the weapons. They don’t look anything special, maybe a little more bulbous, the barrel thicker. Sort of old-fashioned, like something Sam’s seen in an old war movie and it clicks into place in his mind. The fear in Barnes’ voice, old and urgent. Shit. Sam drops the rifles, smashes the mechanisms with the edge of the shield and kicks the broken pieces away.

A group of people run out of flame and shadow straight at him and Sam is immediately defensive until he registers the wide, frightened eyes and torn clothes. The come to halt in front of him, one young woman stumbling over her feet towards him.

‘Serg- Sergeant Barnes sent us to you. We couldn’t find a way out!’ 

She’s little more than a child, Sam thinks, late teens at best.

‘Where is he?’

She gestures vaguely behind her. Right. Barnes still holding his position on the west side. Sam herds the little group towards safety, away from the yells and the fire and the guns and towards the perimeter of the park and Captain Benkari’s people.

‘Barnes, I’m making my way towards your position.’

He gets static in reply.

Where the hell is the Army? Sam wonders vaguely as he jogs around the edge of the clearing. He keeps track of the feed coming in from the drone he’d sent out with Barnes: pairs of figures moving in formation and then a solitary shape tearing through them with the brutal elegance Sam recognises. He heads directly towards Barnes’ current location.

It’s on the far-side of the camp, most of the shelters already collapsed into smouldering ruins, sparks eddying up on the air when another beam collapses into the piles of ash and embers.

There are two sets of hostile targets ahead, and they’re all moving fast, converging on the point where Barnes is.

‘Barnes!’ Sam sends the shield out, sees the flash of gold seams as Barnes plucks it out of the air. Something crackles past Sam’s ear, blue tracing across the dark and he snaps out his wings, twisting low and using them to take down the pair nearest to him. He hears the familiar ringing whistle and jumps in time to catch the shield, using its momentum to spin himself into the targets who are shoving themselves up and feels the splinter of bone as the shield slams into them.

Barnes has disarmed the last two; using one of the rifles as a club, he smashes it across the side of the target’s head and the body crumples to the ground. 

Barnes breaks the rifle in two, drops the pieces and when he stares up at Sam his chest is shaking and there’s a wildness in the glitter of his eyes. 

‘I saw half my unit vaporised by these things, Sam. What the fuck are they doing here?’ His anger scorches the air around him.

‘I don’t know.’ Sam steps forward, caution not taking him too close. ‘You good?’

Barnes closes his eyes, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. ‘Yeah,’ he says eventually. He drops his hand. ‘Yeah. You?’

Sam nods. ‘I’m okay.’ He tilts his head. ‘You seen any Army personnel out here?’

Barnes’ face has flattened out into its usual professional neutrality. ‘No. I’ve been wondering about that, too.’

‘My guys are recruits on a basic drill. They’re not armed and they aren’t first responders. It’s not my fault if you can’t do your fucking job!’

Under the harsh floodlights set up at the command centre, Captain Benkari’s face looks drawn and strained. She pulls in a breath and keeps her tone level even as Major Evans’ face twists into a sneer. 

‘We did our job. No-one was asking you to provide first response but you were requested to hold the perimeter line. As far as we can make out from witness statements there were at least twice as many hostiles as we have in custody. I’m just trying to figure out what went wrong.’

The air has been thickened with ugly tension ever since everyone reconvened at the command centre and Benkari’s attempts to debrief Evans have been about as successful as Sam would have expected, given the givens.

‘Maybe what went wrong is we have a bunch of itinerants camped out here and no-one does shit about it.’ His face works and whatever he’s about to say next gets swallowed back down. ‘Like I said, my guys are not armed. They’re not trained.’ He turns his hard, pale eyes towards Sam and the ripple of distaste is obvious in his face. ‘Not all of us get a fancy costume to parade around in.’

Sam returns the look wearily, refusing to rise to the bait. He’s rewarded with another sneer and tunes out of the conversation. Beside him Barnes has been broodingly silent, arms folded tight across his chest and he stares at a point on the ground. Sam bumps against his shoulder and Barnes blinks, raises his head and turns to Sam. 

‘You good?’

There’s silence for approximately five seconds, which feels more like five years, before Barnes unsticks his jaw and says, ‘Yeah. Just like ten minutes ago. In another ten minutes I’ll still be good.’

‘Hey, don’t be a jerk. Jerk.’ Sam bumps against him, a little harder.

One corner of Barnes’ mouth twitches. He bumps back. ‘It’s just… All those men. Just gone. Not even a body, not their tags, nothing. Nothing to send home to their families. They had to bury empty coffins.’

Sam nods, sombre. Having something tangible doesn’t lessen the grief but there is at least some sort of connection - even if it is illusory. The Barnes family had also buried an empty coffin. And it’s another sobering reminder that all of Bucky’s trauma started long before the Winter Soldier; but the pity and the grief of this particular horror is one that Sam recognises, can also feel as his own. The lean against each other for a moment.

It’s gone quiet. Sam looks up and finds Benkari walking over to them, her face set in harsh lines and she rubs at her forehead, like she’s chasing away a headache.

‘That looked like fun,’ Sam comments, dry, and she huffs out a breath.

‘Yeah. Not the first time, won’t be the last.’ She shakes herself. ‘Anyway, just wanted to say thanks. This could have ended up a lot worse if you two hadn’t shown up.’

‘All part of the service,’ Sam says. He glances out in the general direction of fist-aiders, police and other personnel also busy around the huddled groups of now shelterless refugees. ‘Where are they gonna go?’

‘A sports-centre and a few local church halls have reached out. The usual charities. After that…’ She shrugs, wearied frustration rather than indifference and Sam feels the shared weight of it settle on his shoulders.

He nods. ‘Right.’

There’s a reassuring pressure as Barnes leans against him very slightly, his solid bulk warm and unwavering. Sam feels a little of the tension bleed back out of his shoulders.

Like everyone else in the diner, Sarah has been watching the newsfeed with horrified fascination. First the anger and pity for people whose lives have already been made so miserable, followed by the spike of fear following the almost inevitable reports that Captain America and Sergeant Barnes have gone in.

It’s stupid to send messages, she knows, it’s not like either of them are going to stop for a chat in the middle of a situation but she can’t stop the frantic tap of her own shaking fingers.

When a message does come through from Sam it’s a brief reassurance that they’re both still alive. When they’re off in the middle of nowhere or on the other side of the world, that has to be enough and Sarah knows that even when they return there will still be a few days while the worst of the injuries heal up and the carefully edited stories have been agreed upon before they’ll present themselves for inspection back home in Delacroix.

But this is not that and they’re only a few blocks away and if they won’t come to her, Sarah is going to them.

Oh my God, fine! Sam had said with exaggerated long-suffering, as though he doesn’t milk every bit of fussing and sympathy for all it’s worth. Bucky does that too but quieter, like he’s still getting used to the caring of it all and that breaks her heart every damn time.

So, she waits in the diner, fingers drumming against the formica tabletop and her eyes darting from the TV to the door and back. 

When it opens bringing in a rush of cool air and they’re both just standing there, Sarah again experiences a conflict between relief that they’re both still breathing and upright and a different kind of horror at the obvious evidence of the recent fight. There are bruises on Barnes’ face, knuckles scraped and raw; Sam’s eyes are hollowed out and there’s a stiffness in how he holds himself like he needs to limp but won’t allow it. They smell of smoke and sweat.

Sarah stands up, makes to go towards them but her knees don’t comply and she sits down again. ‘Jesus!’ Her voice wavers, threatening to break.

‘We’re okay,’ Sam tells her as they ease themselves into the booth, and he sounds a little gravelly - whether from smoke inhalation or something else she doesn’t know, but is certain that either way he won’t tell her. They both sit opposite her and she watches them slightly hysterically. 

They are both big men, tall and packed with muscle and they look far too big squeezed into the narrow booth and yet somehow, simultaneously, they look far too small for all of the things that are asked of them.

A waiter comes over, puts down another two glasses silently, fills them with water and leaves just as silently. Sarah is aware that everyone is watching them for several excruciating seconds and then abruptly ignores them, as though this were an everyday thing.

‘So,’ Barnes says, ‘how was your day?’

‘God!’ Sarah buries her face in her hands and allows herself the luxury of a very short meltdown. She grabs a handful of thin paper napkins and scrubs at her cheeks. ‘You two are gonna age me twenty years in a week,’ she says and glares at them accusingly.

Barnes offers her a slightly lopsided-smile. The lines are cut a little deeper around his eyes but their expression is soft. ‘You’d still be more than sixty years younger than me,’ he says and there’s an achingly sweet earnestness  in the slight hesitation before he continues: ‘And even in twenty years time you’ll still be really beautiful.’

Sam rolls his eyes in disgust and aims a glare at his partner. ‘Man, come on! I am sitting right here!’

Barnes blows a breath down his nose and turns to Sam; he says seriously, ‘In twenty years time you will also still look really beautiful, Sam.’

Sarah laughs and feels herself coming apart a little bit with it all over again. Sam leans forward, his hands closing over hers, warm and strong and calloused. ‘Hey. It’s okay. We’re both fine.’

‘I know.’ She nods. ‘I know that. But- God, Sam! Terrorists? In New York?’

There are terrorists everywhere, she knows this; no reason why this city should be spared over anywhere else. But still. It’s New York. It’s supposed to be invincible.

Sam sighs, sits back. ‘We’re working on it,’ he says.

Beside him Barnes nods, his face stern and serious in a way that’s probably reassuring when he’s on a mission but here and now just makes him a stranger to her. She wants to reach across the table and smooth the lines away from his face. She laces her fingers tightly together.

‘Hey.’ It’s Barnes’ voice, soft, and when Sarah makes herself look at him he’s eased back into the mellow sweetness that she always thinks is the warm kernel of who he really is. ‘Everything will be okay.’

‘I know.’

His head tilts and he watches her thoughtfully. ‘Are you hungry? Did you eat? You should eat.’

Sam huffs out a breath of laughter, all amused affection and bumps his shoulder against Barnes, glancing at Sarah with a look that clearly says can you believe this guy? ‘Damn, who knew you were such a mother hen?’

‘Everyone,’ Sarah says firmly and catches a flash of blue from under the long sweep of lashes and the wash of pink across his cheeks. ‘Literally the whole of St Bernard Parish.’

Sam throws up his hands. ‘Yeah, yeah, okay.’

Barnes pushes menus at both of them but there’s a betraying twitch at the corners of his mouth.

Sarah feels the edges of her meltdown recede. Everything will be okay.

Sam had been half-inclined to throw himself on Sarah’s mercy and beg a spot in her fancy-ass hotel room. Even a nice bit of floor would do, he isn’t demanding. The journey back to Brooklyn feels interminable but in the end he goes because, after all, if Barnes can do it, so can he.

He’s having almost indecently appreciative thoughts about a shower and face-planting onto the bed by the time Barnes pushes the door open. So when Griot makes that little noise, like he’s clearing his throat, the one that Sam has come to recognise means the AI has something important to impart, he feels like weeping and for a second considers asking Griot if it can keep until morning.

‘I have identified the man from the video feed,’ Griot continues smoothly and Sam is suddenly very, very awake.

Through the kimoyo beads, Griot throws up the projection of the image taken from the gas station cameras and beside it a file taken from military records.

‘Looks like you were right,’ Sam says, glancing at Barnes. The other man is silent, intent, his pale eyes fixed on the projections.

‘Craig Denton,’ Sam reads out and then frowns. ‘Another Craig?’

‘Could be a coincidence,’ Barnes murmurs and Sam snorts.

‘You don’t believe in coincidences. Okay, Craig Denton… Was actually a lieutenant. Honourable discharge after injury, finished out his time with the hundred-and-forth…’

‘Scroll down,’ Barnes says, sudden and terse. The image shimmers. ‘Sam, look.’

He looks at where Barnes is pointing, the insignia of Denton’s final division, a wolf’s head, white, against a green background.

‘Nightfighters,’ Barnes says. ‘Not Night Howlers. Nightfighters.’

The training division. Major Evans’ division.

They both stare at the projections.

‘Well. Shit,’ Sam says.

Chapter Text

Sam spends much of the next morning up until nearly lunchtime doing the rounds of news shows with his best Captain America voice to reassure people that domestic terrorism is not increasing exponentially and that they are working on solid intelligence.

Which is what is always said, whether it’s true or not.

This time it is true. It had been nearly one in the morning before they’d got off the video call with Rhodes and when they’d finished laying it all out for him there had been a flash in the colonel’s eyes as though he was about to suit up as War Machine and just start blasting the shit out of everything that may or may not be even remotely connected to the situation.

But he didn’t which is probably why he’s the guy advising the President and they’re the guys getting their asses shot at in Central Park.

‘We need more intel,’ Rhodes had said.

When Sam had headed out for the first of many TV studios at stupid o’clock, Barnes was already starting on the laborious process of trawling through everything that they had so far, making the connections that they had missed the first time.

Sam pushes the door to Barnes’ apartment open at precisely twelve minutes past one in the afternoon and is greeted by the sight of Sarah curled up on the couch, her bare feet tucked under her while she reads something on her tablet, and Barnes and Torres standing in front of a truly staggering array of photos, post-it notes and bits of paper that have been pinned to one of the usually bare walls. Being the fully mature adult that he is, Sam addresses himself belligerently to his sister.

‘Aren’t you supposed to be in school?’

Sarah, with equal maturity, sticks her tongue out at him and then says, ‘We have a research assignment on financial regulations, so,’ she waves a hand, ‘I’m researching. Only have to be back on campus by four.’

‘Y’know, in my day-’

From across the room Barnes fails to stifle a guffaw; Sam glares at the back of his head.

‘In my day, research was done in a library.’

Sarah tilts her head up at him, giving him what their Titi Rosa used to call an old-fashioned look that somehow makes her look younger, mischievous, with the sparkle in her dark eyes and the rounding of her cheeks. Sam feels his mouth quirk in response but keeps his face stern.

‘There’s things called e-books now?’ Sarah’s eyebrows go up. ‘Or are you at the age now where new tech is just more of an abstract than a reality?’

‘Oh!’ Sam huffs out an outraged laugh. ‘Oh, is that how this is going down?’

‘Brought it on yourself, Samuel,’ she concludes primly and turns back to her tablet. 

Sam drops a hand to her shoulder, squeezes with a reassurance that goes both ways, and then stoops to drop a kiss on top of her head. Sarah looks up at him again, their faces still close together and pats his cheek, twice, the way their mama used to do.

He ambles over to Barnes and Torres, snagging a banana out of the bowl on the counter on the way and lets out a long whistle when he sees the full impact of their handiwork.

‘Wow. Okay, so you two went full wall of crazy while I was gone, huh?’

It’s even colour-coded somehow, different coloured tape joining pictures and notes, criss-crossing and sometimes converging. Information blooms outwards, like it’s colonising the wall; the three main sites have been named: Robots and Scientists, Army, and Senate and Banking.

‘What did you do, raid an office supply store?’

‘We are organised, Sam,’ Barnes says. He pauses. ‘And I wouldn’t say raid, just picked up a few basic supplies.’

Sam grins around a mouthful of banana. ‘Please tell me you bought glitter pens. And stickers.’

‘Fuck off,’ Barnes tells him and then his cheeks turn pink and his eyes shiftily guilty. He glances at Sarah. ‘Oh, uh, sorry-’

Sarah grins back at him. ‘Y’all know I work down at the docks, right?’

‘Yes, but…’ Barnes stares at her, as though the very fact of her curled on his couch and hugging one of his cushions to her chest is everything. ‘But you’re a lady.’

Sarah’s face takes on an impossible tenderness. ‘I have said way worse than that on the regular.’

‘Yeah, well… You got class. That covers everything.’

Sam kind of wants to give them both shit for it because this is his (currently fake robot) best friend and his little sister but somehow the awkward earnestness of it all is so heartrendingly endearing that he feels his eyes sting and concentrates on eating his fruit. 

Torres gazes at both of them with goofy delight, his dark eyes shining and Sam decides right then and there that if the young lieutenant asks so much as half a question about the potential romantic entanglements of one Sarah Wilson and any or all versions of one James Buchanan Barnes, Sam’s gonna have Rhodes transfer Torres to somewhere really unspeakable. Like Anchorage.

‘Okay,’ Sam says, brisk. ‘Where’re we at?’

‘Let’s start with Denton.’ Barnes folds his arms across his chest and glares at the photograph pulled from military records. ‘Michelle Johnson got back to us - she confirmed that this is the same Craig her sister got mixed up with.’

In Sam’s mind that had no longer been in doubt, but it’s still nice to have the confirmation.

‘He’s from a well-off family,’ Barnes continues. ‘At least, he was - they lost pretty much everything after Insight.’

‘Were they HYDRA?’

Barnes’ shoulders rise and fall slightly. ‘Unclear. There was a lot of investment in companies that turned out to have HYDRA connections or were fronts for HYDRA companies and it all imploded after Natasha’s intel dump. But that happened to a lot of people; I mean, the whole point was that HYDRA hid in plain sight so people thought that they were investing in legitimate companies.’ He sighs. ‘Anyway. Most of those SHIELD files got retrieved or redacted as soon as possible but there are still copies floating about. Griot’s helping Torres scan through the files that are left, see if there’s any firm connection between SHIELD or HYDRA and the Denton family.’

‘Nothing yet,’ Torres says, serious and yet somehow still cheerful. ‘But we’ll keep looking.’

‘So, our buddy Craig here goes from riches to rags and..?’ Sam looks at Barnes expectantly.

‘Joins the US Army. But before that, he’d been a Senate Intern and had been assigned to one Robert Callahan.’

Sam follows the line of blue tape linking Denton’s photograph to Callahan’s. Another line in the same colour leads back out again, this time to a photo of Evans. Sam gestures towards it. ‘How’s that work?’

Barnes responds with a grim smile. ‘Evans was the military liaison to the Senate Committee that Callahan sits on. He was there the same time as Denton.’

‘And Denton ends up serving with Evans.’

Barnes tilts his head. ‘Well, eventually. Hey, kid - you’ve got his records.’

Eyes gleaming, Torres opens a file on his laptop. ‘So, Craig Denton has a pretty good service record. Commendations, awards. He did a lot of work with intelligence units and had skills in cybersecurity and weapons systems.’

‘Handy guy,’ Sam comments.

‘He’s injured on active duty and that’s when he transfers to the One-Oh-Four as an instructor. Then he leaves the Army.’

‘Believe it or not,’ Barnes adds with a bleakly amused little smile, ‘he did a stint at the VA as a counsellor.’

Sam groans. ‘Yeah, yeah, don’t hold it against the rest of us.’ Then he frowns, thoughtful, rubs one thumbnail back and forth across his lower lip. ‘You get some real disaffected people showing up to those groups.’

‘Disaffected enough to be recruited by a bunch of right-wing assholes?’ Grey-blue eyes glitter sharp and bright.

He doesn’t need to say it. Men and women angry and confused at a system that had reconstructed them and their whole lives and then treated them as broken weapons when they’d been spat back out the other side. 

And then there are those with a different kind of anger. ‘You also get a bunch of people pretty pissed they don’t make it through basic training.’ Sam jerks his chin at the wall of crazy. ‘Evans and Denton could have been running their own recruitment inside the training programmes.’

‘Hm. Maybe,’ Barnes mutters, squinting at the array of information in the way he does when he’s puzzling something out. ‘Denton also spent some time volunteering on prison outreach and rehabilitation programmes and I’m guessing he wasn’t doing it because he’s such a good Samaritan.’

‘Any of those programmes include members of the Praetorian Brotherhood?’

Barnes’ smile turns unpleasant. ‘How’d you know?’

Sam huffs out a breath, shakes his head.

‘But there’s nothing concrete,’ Torres adds. ‘So far none of our cross-checks have thrown up any common names. Sorry.’ Like it’s his fault.

‘Okay.’ Barnes points at another photograph, this time in the Robots and Scientists section. ‘In twenty-fourteen, Doctor Holden Radcliffe submitted a report to the Armed Services Committee. Now, we haven’t tracked down the report yet, but Torres got hold of the transcript of the meeting with Radcliffe after the report went in. The committee was interested in the tech for cybersecurity and offensive strikes. Radcliffe seems to have been more interested in the, uh, beneficial effects for veterans post-combat and using AI to assess and diffuse threats.’

‘So, Radcliffe was a good guy?’ Sam doesn’t mean to sound quite so sceptical but it comes all too easy these days.

Barnes head tilts a fractions, his lips pushing out. ‘Maybe. Maybe he had his own agenda. Anyway, the committee decided it would all cost too much. After all, why blow the budget on a bunch of expensive robots when you’ve got an unlimited supply of poor kids to pick on as canon fodder, right?’

The scorching anger is back and Sam feels his own rising, white noise buzzing in his ears. He glances across at Sarah and she sits very still, her gaze fixed somewhere in the middle distance and her jaw works tight. The recruitment posters get plastered across every poor community in the country and when they’d been plastered all over Delacroix, on the walls where Cass and AJ and their friends play and shoot hoops, Sam had taken himself out and torn down every damn one he could find, his hands stinging with paper cuts, his fingers tacky with glue but his head a little calmer, a little quieter.

Sam had gone into the Air Force as a college graduate, he had been part of an elite squad. His experience is not the typical one and it had still been a special kind of hell all of its very own in the end. He shakes it off, stares at the photos and post-it notes and sheets of paper all linked with the criss-crossing coloured tape.

Beside him, Barnes performs what Sam can only describe as a sudden full-body flinch and then holds himself very still. Sam frowns and- Oh. Sarah has padded over to them, has her chin resting on Barnes’ right shoulder and he looks like he’s trying very hard not to move or breathe or even blink.

‘So, uh…’ Barnes gruffs out, clears his throat and tries again. ‘Apart from Petersen and Gupta having studied with Radcliffe, so far there’s nothing linking them to anyone else until they got sub-contracted to help build the training simulations.’ 

They all stare at the neat array of intel.

‘So, what? Do we start bringing people in? Question them?’ Torres peers at Sam and Barnes hopefully.

Sam rubs at the stiff tendons in the back of his neck. ‘This is cool and all but it’s all just circumstantial, there’s no actual proof. We try questioning someone like Callahan he’ll get lawyered up faster than you can say restraining order. We’ve got no leverage. The only concrete thing we have is that Craig Denton is an associate of Christine Schaeffer - and she’s still in a coma and he’s in the wind.’

‘There has to be a base,’ Barnes says and unbends enough that he shifts his feet slightly and his arm almost-but-not-quite goes around Sarah. ‘They’re using HYDRA funds, they’ve got HYDRA weapons; and those are old weapons, there has to have been a cache somewhere.’

‘Denton was headed north,’ Sam offers.

Barnes snorts, rolls his eyes. ‘Great. Somewhere north of Yonkers there may or may not be an old HYDRA base.’ What little levity in his face vanishes. ‘HYDRA… They liked to keep everything in-house as much as possible. Training, tech, weapons.’ He says it in that detached way, as though he hadn’t been one of the weapons, put into storage and taken out again when needed.

‘You got a line on HYDRA facilities Stateside?’ Sam asks.

Barnes shakes his head. ‘Didn’t spend much time in the States over the years. As far as I know. Not like I got an orientation and map co-ordinates on where I was whenever they defrosted me.’

Sam hears the faint intake of breath, catches a glimpse of Sarah’s face as she presses closer to Barnes, her lips pressed together. The look on Barnes’ face is suddenly stricken and his arm does go around her fully, an awkward sideways hug. Bucky doesn’t talk about this stuff around Sarah, is the thing. It’s not like she doesn’t know, but hearing it said out loud, hearing it in that neutral tone seamed with bitterness that Bucky always uses when he talks about HYDRA, that hits different. It hurts more and Sam should know because it still hurts him every damn time hearing it.

And Barnes, just like Bucky, would do anything rather than hurt Sarah, even slightly. But maybe it’s better this way, Sam thinks. Maybe it’s best that she hears it.

They still stand together, after all. And they still look right.

‘Anyhow, wasn’t tracking down HYDRA bases more your line? You must have read some of the intel stored there before you started blowing shit up.’

Sam grins back at him, feels the creak of it in his cheeks. ‘Yeah, no, that was all Steve, man. I was spending all my time looking for your sorry ass.’

And Barnes does have the grace to look faintly shame-faced at that. ‘Oh… Yeah. Right.’

‘The start of a beautiful bromance,’ Sarah adds, soft, her dark eyes mischief-bright.

They both splutter indignantly and Torres laughs.

‘Wait, wait,’ the younger man adds, his face slightly flushed, ‘is it a RoBromance now? Geddit? A robot-bromance?’

Barnes glares at him. ‘Oh my God. That’s it. Who wants lunch?’

In Sarah’s precious, not-so-idle fantasies about staying with Bucky in Brooklyn, there had been just as much of the domestic - cooking together, listening to music, cuddling a little on the couch maybe - as there had the thought of them finally finally fucking. 

They have cooked together, listened to music, chattered on amiably about matters both serious and inconsequential but that has always been in Delacroix. Doing the same in Brooklyn had taken on a significance in Sarah’s mind that she hadn’t really started to parse until she’s stacking the cleaned plates from lunch back in the cupboard. They had moved around one another with the same ease in the tiny kitchenette in Bucky’s apartment as they did in Sarah’s kitchen, Sam and the boy, Joaquín, staying discreetly on the other side of the open-plan space, still inspecting the wall of pinned-up papers and notes.

She’s wanted to carve out a space for herself in his life, she realises, the way he’s carved one out in hers.

The realisation of it feels warm and settled in her body even if everything else jangles on restless nerves.

It carries her through to the early afternoon and she reluctantly pulls on her shoes and gathers up her tablet and her notes and starts back for Manhattan. Barnes walks her down to the street door, waiting on the Lyft he’s called for her.

‘It’s almost over, isn’t it?’ she says, her voice a murmur. They stand in the liminal space between the hallway and the street and his face is almost wholly in shadow, just the glint of his eyes clear.

‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘We’re close. Just a couple more days, I think.’

And she thinks that they’re talking about two different things.

‘Jamie.’

His eyes flutter closed, eyelashes curling softly against his cheeks. ‘Don’t, Sarah. I…’ A long exhale and he looks at her. ‘Jesus.’

‘Promise me I’ll see you again.’

One corner of his mouth turns up, wry and edging on sorrowful. ‘My sisters made me promise I’d come home. Really can’t stand the thought of making another promise I might not be able to keep.’

It’s a rational, reasonable response. And she is suddenly, sweepingly, unreasonably angry.

‘That ain’t good enough,’ she says and her throat feels scalded, tight with fear and rage and love.

‘I know.’ His hand cups her cheek, a little clumsy in the motion and his hard calloused thumb rubs against her cheekbone. ‘I’m sorry.’

Her fingers wrap around his wrist. He rests his forehead against hers, his breath ghosting against her skin and she wants. All the lines of his strong beautiful body and the complicated depths of his loving heart, she wants them in a way that pulls sharp and heavy and urgent, pulsing through her bones and pooling low in her belly.

‘Tell me. Say it.’

‘I can’t,’ he repeats, stubborn. She presses closer to him, feeling the heat radiating off him.

‘Not that.’ She glares at him and his jaw juts, wildfire flaring in his silvered eyes blown wide in the dimly-lit interior with its polished floor and smell of Pine-Sol.

‘Fine. I love you. Is that what you wanted?’

‘Yes!’ She hisses it and in the whole history of forever it’s probably the worst declaration of love and she’s kind of forced it out of him but he’s said it and it’s hers. His eyes close again and the line of his shoulders softens and when he curves against her he fits more easily into her softness and she wraps her arms around his neck.

‘Fuck. That was awful.’ Words slurred against the column of her throat.

‘Yes,’ she agrees. ‘But you meant it?’

‘Sarah!’

‘I already told you I love you,’ she says, placid, indulges herself in playing with the short rough hair curling above his collar. ‘I want you, too.’

He raises his head, takes her face between his hands. ‘If I could…’

A smile, sad and sweet pulls at her lips. ‘I know.’

‘But when Bucky gets back you get to tell it all to him.’

Outside a car horn blares. He pulls away from her, eyes raking her face with a quiet desperation as though he’s memorising her by heart.

And then it’s all practical. They walk down the short steep flight of steps from the hallway to the street, he opens the door of the pale blue Toyota and then hands her into it with that understated old-fashioned charm that’s all the more charming because he isn’t even aware of it.

The car pulls away from the kerb and he’s still standing there and Sarah looks back at him though the rear windshield as they pick up speed and she looks back and back and back.

For the next twenty-four hours they stare at maps until Sam starts seeing orienteering lines when he closes his eyes.

No new leads have magically sprouted up: the last known address for Craig Denton in Boston got discreetly checked by the local police department, who found a startled art student and her girlfriend who had taken over the lease. Rhodes is chasing down a list of black sites and keeping an extremely light-touch surveillance on Evans because two Avengers parked outside his place is all kinds of obvious.

Barnes had held that while that might be true of Sam, he himself knows perfectly well how to remain undetected during a stake-out. The bickering over that had filled in an hour and then it was back to waiting to hear from Rhodes and go over their intel again.

’It’s not like HYDRA put HYDRA Base Here on a map,’ Barnes says, stretching out his shoulders. ‘North of New York doesn’t exactly narrow it down. They could be anywhere. They could be in, I dunno, Canada.’

Sam feels his lips twitch. ‘You got something against Canada?’

‘No,’ Barnes says cautiously. ‘It’s just… Canada. I mean…’ He shrugs. ‘What is there to say?’

Sam laughs, works out the kinks in his neck. ‘Man, you got some weird prejudices.’

‘Oh-ho! This from the man who thinks that everyone born any further north than Baton Rouge is a Yankee.’ Barnes eyebrows hit an angle and his eyes glint.

Sam waves his hands at him. ‘Yeah, yeah, whatever.’

The humour fades from Barnes’ face. ‘Even when we get a location, we can’t just go walking in. Those HYDRA weapons… They’re no joke, Sam. There’s no bringing anyone back.’

He nods and feels the sickening pull in the pit of his stomach. ‘Yeah. I know.’ Sam clicks and unclicks the cap off one of the innumerable pens now lying around the apartment. ‘Did, uh…’ He moistens his lips, not really wanting to say the specific name. ‘Did any of your science guys back in the day come up with a way to block those things?’

Barnes leans against the windowsill, running one finger along the aloe vera’s long spiky arm. ‘You mean Howard?’ He looks up then, eyes curious but not challenging.

Sam’s face twists with a wry apology. ‘Yeah.’

Barnes stares at the floor, meditative, his lips pushing out. ‘He tried a jamming device one time, I think. It didn’t work very well. But then, not even Howard really knew how the Tesseract worked and that’s what powered the things. So. He was pretty limited in what he was able to do.’

Sam nods, drops the pen back onto the table. ‘Might stand a better chance of rigging up a jammer now. I mean, it’s not like we don’t use energy weapons all the time these days.’

Barnes eyes narrow a fraction and then he pushes himself up. ‘Maybe. I gotta call Ayo, anyway.’

‘Calling in another favour?’ Sam asks because damn but he would really love to know exactly how the apparent friendship works between those two.

The dark head tilts a fraction. ‘Something like that.’

‘I’ve been trying to figure out these guys’ MO,’ Sam says, swallowing down a breakfast smoothie.

‘Cute you think they have one,’ Barnes replies. He looks tired and Sam frowns at him. Barnes still takes the pull-out in the living room, Sam having long given up the battle that they at the very least alternate in who gets the bed. He can see the pale flickering light from the TV poking under the bedroom door, knows Bucky often uses it as white noise to help him sleep. Maybe Barnes is doing the same.

And, if Sam’s honest, sleep doesn’t come all that easy, impatience and a thousand scenarios ranging from the good to the unthinkable playing endlessly through his head.

He shakes himself. ‘Seriously, though. Those guys in Central Park, they were on a whole other level to the ones in DC.’

Barnes considers this, continues the process of trimming the dead leaves off a ficus. ‘Maybe DC wasn’t the real deal.’

Sam chokes slightly, coughs. ‘People got real dead, man!’

‘No, I know, I mean…’ His lips press together. ‘Okay, the hostiles weren’t well-trained and the gas canisters were harmless. They had weapons but not the souped-up HYDRA monstrosities. Maybe that whole show in DC wasn’t about them.’

Sam leans forward across the breakfast bar. ‘Okay. I’m listening.’

‘Maybe it was about us. Or, specifically…’ Barnes blows out a frustrated breath, runs one hand through his hair. It flops back down across his forehead. ‘Maybe it was about me. A threat alert got called in, right? They wanted us to be there and it was, what, less than a week since I’d been … brought online?’

Sam winces and frowns at him. It’s ignored.

‘So it was, what, an audition?’

Barnes raises a shoulder, lets it drop. ‘Maybe. The Central Park attack came out of nowhere and Evans and whoever he was training were obviously there to make sure his people got away. He wasn’t counting on us showing up to spoil it all.’

Sam turns it over and nods slowly. ‘Yeah. Yeah, okay, that makes sense.’

Barnes hums, focuses on his plant. ‘Still one big question, though.’

‘Oh?’

Sam gets the full blast of Barnes’ blue eyes, serious and intent. ‘Why was I built? What’s the point?’

They watch each other. 

‘I guess when we find Bucky we’ll find out,’ Sam says.

‘There’s an abandoned SHIELD facility at the base of the Adirondacks,’ Rhodes tells them the next time he calls in. On the screen he still looks as immaculate as ever but the lines of tiredness cut deep around his eyes and mouth. It’s late. Barnes still has the curtains back and the streetlights pour electric white light into the room.

Sam returns him a sceptical look. ‘Where all the tourists go?’

‘Not all the land’s open to tourists, Sam. And it’s a pretty good cover for traffic going in and out of a remote location.’

‘What makes you think this is the place?’ Barnes, as upright and still as though he’s in a briefing room.

‘Might not be,’ Rhodes admits. ‘But, uh… It looks like this one was sorta off the books, took me a while to find it in the mess of old SHIELD files. It’s listed as a listening station but that doesn’t match the layout in the schematics. So. Wasn’t cleared out quite as thoroughly as it could have been after Insight.’ Even over the video call he can evidently see whatever it is that Barnes’ face does. ‘There was a lot going on,’ the colonel adds, voice firm and a warning note in it.

Barnes shifts, weight settling in his body and he nods. 

‘You still got eyes on Evans?’ Sam asks and Rhodes scowls at him.

‘No, figured I’d just give him a pass on account of him being such a stand-up guy. Of course I’ve got eyes on him. Torres has got oversight, he’s got a picked team keeping watch.’

Rhodes sends available blueprints and schematics over-

‘If this was a double-your-fun HYDRA-SHIELD combo, there’re probably levels or bunkers below what’s shown here,’ Barnes says, scowling at the images.

Sam sighs. ‘Always the optimist.’

-and they add those to the things they stare at, along with satellite imagery from a feed Griot tapped them into. There’s activity there, not a lot but more than there should be for an abandoned base. They keep a lock on the feed, set Griot to mine as much data as possible.

Sam takes Sarah to the airport when her course is done and for all he hates the fear tamped down behind her eyes that she tries so valiantly to hide, he’s glad she won’t be here for the end part. 

Rhodes calls again with news that Evans caught a flight out of DC to Burlington NY, and Torres is tailing him. When Torres calls in just over four hours later it’s to say that he’s followed Evans to a restricted area in the Adirondacks and there’s evidence of recent heavy traffic in and out of the site.

It’s still dark when Sam and Barnes pile tac gear, weapons, ammo, the shield, into the car and peel it quietly out of the secure lot in Brooklyn. It’s just breaking dawn when they perch on the ridge in the foothills, doing recon through the thick covering of wilderness that’s reclaimed the space. Blast doors set into the face of slate-grey rock, bony spurs pushing up into towering mountains, and the muddy earth freshly-churned by heavy tyre treads. 

Sam sends out Redwing on a tentative scan. Whether it’s something natural in the stone or a deliberate jamming, it’s hard to get a clear reading. But the drone does pick up a burst of an energy signature. A huge amount of electrical activity taking place deep behind the rock and metal. 

Sam feels a rush of relief so profound that for a moment he’s light-headed with it, steadies himself against the stony ground. This is it, he’s sure of it. This is where Bucky is. And they’re coming for him.

They rendezvous with Torres at a spot that caters heavily towards the tourist trade. Barnes pays cash for a motel room and they pile in, setting up the monitors and satellite feed. 

Everything in the room is in shades of umber and burnt orange and it’s giving Sam a headache. His palms itch with the need to do something, hit something and shit, maybe that was what Steve had felt but all of the time. 

They watch the feed recording from two days ago, watch as a troop carrier sways along the muddy track towards the base followed by a couple of Jeeps. Long moments and then a stream of bodies exit the blast doors, pile in and the vehicles head back down the track before veering onto a new path that takes them higher into the mountains. Same pattern repeated the following night and their best bet now is putting everything on it repeating again tonight.

Covert infiltration rather than an outright raid because they are, all of them, all too aware that one ending to these situations is where the hostiles kill the hostages.

It’s the one hostage.

And they’ve come too far to risk that precious life now.

When the sun hits the horizon, Sam and Barnes are back in situ on the ridge. When it dips just below they watch the two Jeeps, one troop carrier and their occupants, trundle down the track, wait until they’ve cleared the site and then they scramble down, jogging lightly across the open space and hug the rock face, easing towards the blast doors. 

There’s a keypad lock that does not withstand Griot’s scan and delicate probing. Less than ten seconds and there’s a series of beeps, green lights flash and there’s a dull clang as the interior lock disengages, one door hinging outward slightly.

Barnes huffs out a breath and levels his gaze at Sam. ‘If I get turned into a threat, you can’t hesitate. It won’t- It won’t be me anyway. You can’t think about it like that, you just have to do it.’

Sam studies him unhappily, defiance mixing with a queasy acceptance because now that’s it come to it there’s always been that one percent possibility.

‘Sam,’ Barnes urges. ‘You have to. Promise me.’

It feels like the worst betrayal. ‘I promise.’

Relief at the edges of Barnes’ eyes, even if it does seem tempered by a certain sadness and resignation. But he nods, satisfied. Barnes raises a hand towards the open edge of the door and Sam clamps his own hand around the other man’s wrist. They stand for a moment, awkward, Barnes twisting around and his eyebrows raised at an incredulous angle. Sam lets go.

‘I’m not going back on what I just said. But you gotta do something for me, too.’

Barnes tilts his head back, chin lifting and he waits. 

‘Let’s say for the sake of argument that you don’t go all murderbot and just stay you.’ Sam releases a breath. ‘Look, I know you said your piece. After this, you’re gone and all that. And… Okay, I get it. I don’t agree with it but I get it, I guess. I’m just asking you not to pull some dumb shit on principle just to get yourself killed. You decide after all you still don’t wanna stick around, I’ll respect that. I promise. But take some time to think about it. Talk to Bucky, at least. Please.’

Under the failing light, Barnes’ gaze is opaque and grey as the stone towering over them, pupils wide and inky black.

‘Okay, Sam,’ he says, soft. ‘Okay.’

‘Oh.’ Sam feels a smile stretch his mouth that is disproportionate to those simple words. He stands back, schools his face back into something more appropriate for a mission and slides through the opening after Barnes.

The interior is a cavernous space, lined with racks that had probably once held weaponry and ammo. Strip lights flicker overhead and despite the mustiness there’s a seam of fresher air, the air conditioning and quality control still evidently functioning and probably have seen recent use. They move across the floor, gritty debris under their feet, until they’re funnelled into a wide corridor with side-passages branching off. Sam keeps an eye on his HUD and the feeds coming in from the Redwing drones.

‘Dammit!’

‘What?’ Barnes keeps his already soft voice low. 

‘Outside feed’s being scrambled. This place is like a Goddamn Faraday Cage.’

A sigh greets this. ‘Of course it is.’

‘A lot of electrical activity up ahead,’ Sam mutters. Barnes nods in response and they ease forward.

There’s a second’s warning from the feed before the two dark figures rush at them from one of the side passages. Barnes is already crouched, defensive and he propels himself at one figure, using the momentum of his own and its body to drive them both further down the corridor. Sam spins, the shield snapping out and lands at the perfect angle, shearing through the neck and taking off the head.

The same not-right face, dark hair, dark eyes.

Barnes jogs back towards him, readjusting the set of his jacket and looks at Sam expectantly. 

‘Think they sent out an alert?’

‘Reckon we‘ll find out,’ Barnes says, almost cheerfully. ‘We should probably see what’s so important where they came from, right?’

‘Probably,’ Sam agrees.

It’s long and narrow and lined with doors along one side, all with keypads and all of them standing open and empty. 

‘The hell kind of SHIELD facility was this?’ Sam murmurs, frowning at the series of tiny rooms with their seamless grey walls and floors and ceilings.

‘Guess they needed somewhere to keep the bad guys they didn’t want anyone else to know about,’ Barnes replies, voice also low, and if he’s sharing any of the disappointment that Sam feels, he doesn’t show it. Sam isn’t naïve, he gets national security and keeping intelligence secure but beyond that he likes things out in the open where you can take a good long look at them. Secret prisons are never a good sign, no matter who has built them.

They continue making their sweep down the corridor and get to a door that’s still closed and the keypad glows red. Locked. Sam feels the rush of adrenaline as Griot tears through the code. The keypad beeps, turns green and the door swings open. The figure curled on the narrow bed glances over at them and then shoves up, standing quickly and almost toppling over again.

Kate Gupta, in baggy sweats that look like she’s been living in them for days, stares wildly, her skin sallow, dark circles under her eyes like bruises.

‘Oh, thank God!’ she says, voice rasping. ‘I thought you weren’t coming!’

Sam stares at her, his heart punching in his throat. 

It’s Barnes who speaks, his shoulder bumping against Sam’s as he pushes forwards, crowding into the grey-on-grey-on-grey room. ‘What the hell, lady?’ His chest rises and falls, his body tensed as though too much feeling is washing through it. ‘I actually liked you!’

If he’d hit her, Sam thinks slightly hysterically, she couldn’t have looked more wounded, her brown eyes shimmering and her lips wobble.

‘I’m sorry… I’m sorry! It- It wasn’t meant to be like this!’

‘What the fuck was it supposed to be like, huh?’ Barnes’ face dark with anger and his voice is low and raw and relentless. ‘You built me. For what? To be a killing machine?’

Her mouth opens and closes silently.

Sam takes in the room. Cell, he corrects himself. One bed made up on a hard shelf built into the wall. A small basin in the corner. A chair and a small table with two plastic water bottles, one empty lying on its side and the other only half full. Even with the door standing open it’s oppressively quiet. And she had been locked in.

‘You’re not a killing machine,’ she says. She looks between them, eyes going glassy between evident relief and equally evident guilt. ‘You’re- An android that could withstand more than a human, that could fight harder, survive longer, it-it would save human lives. But th-the point is that you have a conscience, that you make ethical decisions.’ She looks between them, pleading. Her hands shake. ‘That’s why using Sergeant Barnes as a model was such a good idea because he’s already enhanced, you wouldn’t suddenly be stronger and you’d be looking to save people, not just-not just bulldoze through them.’

Barnes stares at her for a moment and then the anger sweeps back into his face. ‘Cute. Very altruistic. And that’s where the drugs and the taser-batons come into it, huh?’

‘Those weren’t supposed to be for him-’ She stops herself and her skin turns ashen.

‘Oh…’ Barnes nods. ‘Oh, I get it. They were for me, huh? If I started, what,  malfunctioning?’

‘That’s not-’ Gupta shakes her head, sharp, biting down on her lip.

‘Is there an override?’ Barnes asks it quietly, strain running through his voice. ‘In me. Is there an override?’

She stares at him blankly and then understanding creeps across her features. She looks stricken. ‘Oh God… No. No! There’s nothing like- No-one can make you do anything you don’t want to do.’

Barnes closes his eyes for a moment, his body seeming to sag with the sudden loss of tension. He nods.

Sam’s triumphant I told you so! is lost in the enormity of his own relief. And they still have a job to do and there are still too many unknowns.

‘Why?’ Sam asks quietly. ‘Why do this?’ He keeps his eyes on Gupta. She sinks back down onto the hard bed, her body curled inward. 

‘We were losing our funding. When we were approached by Major Evans it seemed- Look, we knew, ethically, it was questionable-’

‘Questionable!’

Sam puts a hand on Barnes’ shoulder and it gets shrugged off. But Barnes doesn’t say anything more and both stand, crowded into the too-small cell. 

Kate Gupta wrings her hands, nails biting into the flesh. ‘It was wrong. But it was our last shot and they gave us everything we needed. We thought that if we could build a real LMD, one that could think and feel and act like a real human, then it would be worth it.’ She brushes the back of one hand against her cheek. ‘Then that day… He kept saying it was important that you and Sergeant Barnes didn’t see each other and he drugged the tea, he said it was kinder because with Sergeant Barnes’ history it might freak him out if he saw you…’

Sam’s head tilts. ‘This Evans?’

‘No. His name’s Craig. We hadn’t met him before and it was getting weird but we’d already gone along with it so far. He’s…’ She shudders. ‘It all started happening so fast after that. And Sergeant Barnes, he- He tried to fight it all off but the sedative was too strong and then-then the tasers-’ Her face twitches, muscles slack. ‘And then they brought us here and-and we realised that this had all gotten way out of control and C-Cal… Cal, he said we-we had to call you, tell you the truth, we-we had to get out…’ Breath hitching, her eyes too wide, too afraid.

‘Where’s Petersen now?’ Sam asks, gentle, and her face crumples, a wounded sound breaking past her lips. She presses her hands over her mouth, folding inwards as though it would take away the hurt.

‘He was my best friend.’ Her voice is a broken whisper. ‘And they- The back of his head exploded and there was nothing I could do. I don’t even know what they did with his body!’ She buries her face in her hands and her grief is a tearing, visceral thing. She shrinks back further onto the hard narrow bed. When she looks up again her face is soggy and her teeth clench together. ‘I have a sister, she has kids. They keep showing me video, real-time video, in their house and I- I-’

‘Okay, okay.’ Sam steps forward, kneels in front of her, the shield resting against one grey wall with a dull clang. He looks up at Barnes and there’s more pity than ire in his face. ‘It’s okay. Nothing’s gonna happen to your family.’ Sam ducks his head, catching her eyes with his. ‘Okay?’

Her breath shakes out. She nods.

‘Where’s Bucky?’

Gupta takes in another breath and releases it. ‘He’s in the Framework.’

Which does not sound great. 

‘What is that?’

Her eyes dart to Barnes, still standing dark and glowering in the doorway. She rubs her face, runs her hands over her hair. ‘It’s a virtual reality programme, immersive.’

‘That’s what you were talking about that first day,’ Barnes says, his voice low and dangerously even, like a knife-edge. ‘When we ran the simulations.’

She nods. ‘Right. I didn’t know what else to do. It- It was the only way I could think to keep him safe.’

Sam’s heart is in his throat again but this time it isn’t adrenaline. It’s cold and choking. He hears the creak of leather as Barnes shifts, edging closer into the grey confines.

‘Safe from what?’

Her eyes go to Barnes and her face goes almost slack. ‘Evans started talking about how- How valuable, he could be, if… If-’

‘If they turned him into the Winter Soldier,’ Barnes states, heavy and oppressive. She retreats further.

‘Evans, he- He kept saying what a great symbol it would be and-and it would be funny when…’ She moistens her lips. ‘When they got the Winter Soldier to kill Captain America.’

It hangs in the air. 

Sam pulls in a breath, pushes down the anger and the nausea. He’s aware of the still presence behind him, just the clenching and unclenching of both flesh and metal fingers.

‘They wanted me to figure out how to do it, so I told them if I put him in the Framework it would speed up the process.’

‘Will it?’ 

She looks at Barnes, horrified. ‘No! I was stalling, I didn’t know what else to do. It- It’s just like he’s dreaming.’

A strange, almost rictus smile, ghastly, pulls at Barnes’ face, all the horrors of his worst dreams parading behind his eyes.

‘Show us.’ Sam grabs her arm, pulls her up and she goes with him unresisting, walking like she’s only half-awake.

‘What’s with the freaky-ass robots?’ Sam asks, scanning ahead, as she steers them through passageways, Barnes at their six keeping watch.

‘That guy, Craig, he built a prototype. It went wrong - not the software, but the housing.’ Matching Sam’s pace, she almost jogs beside him and she talks breathlessly. ‘He wanted to start again but Evans told him they just needed lots of them, it didn’t matter what they looked like. He’s smart. Craig. Not a genius, not like Cal, but he knows what he’s doing.’

‘And used himself as a model, huh?’ Barnes cuts in, dry and mellow. ‘Oh well, what’s a little narcissism between psychopaths, right?’ 

Gupta lets out a little gasp of soggy laughter that she swallows back down and she looks almost grateful.

‘If Denton can build LMDs, what did they need you for?’

She shakes her head jerkily. ‘They’re not LMDs, they’re just fancier sorts of robots. They can’t act independently. That’s what they wanted us for, to make LMDs to infiltrate government and the Pentagon. But then they killed Cal, so…’ Her mouth twists. ‘It’s not like they told me all their plans. But I know they kept making the other robots.’

‘How many are there?’ Sam asks.

‘A few dozen, last I saw. They’re all down in the lower levels, I think, except the ones they use as guards.’

‘Told you,’ Barnes states from behind.

‘Why d-’ Sam starts and cuts off when Gupta takes them through a security door into a chamber lined with console tables and filled with monitors and equipment. There’s a constant electromagnetic hum, the whirr of cooling systems, the sounds oddly deadened. Soundproofing on the walls. At the far end a window looks into another smaller chamber beyond and-

‘Bucky!’ 

Sam all but sprints for the door beside it, wrenching it open.

There’s a row of the same upright gurneys as the one they’d seen at the place in the Bronx only this time Bucky is strapped into one of them, his wrists clamped to the armrests and the halo of metal plates lies sleek around his head. An IV drip is attached to his right hand. His face is thinner, Sam thinks anxiously, the cheeks more sunken and his eyes hollowed-out. But he does look peaceful. It’s almost like the way he’d looked in cryostasis in Wakanda except now it’s all matte black and chrome instead of brilliant white. And Bucky is actually warm and breathing this time, Sam stares at the rise and fall of his chest. There’s an LED panel built into the unit, monitoring vitals, from what Sam can tell, and a series of buttons.

‘Okay,’ he tells him, ‘gonna get you out of here.’

‘Stop!’

Kate Gupta rushes at him, placing herself between him and Bucky, almost defensive, like she thinks she’s protecting him. From Sam. 

He stares at her.

‘Don’t.’ Shaky. ‘You can’t just pull him out, it- It could kill him.’

‘You said it like he’s sleeping!’ His cheeks have gone numb. He feels dangerously angry.

‘It is! Just-’ She closes her eyes, pulls in a breath. ‘It’s what happened to Holden.’

Barnes is in the room, keeping distance. He stands in front of what Sam realises is a two-way mirror and he stares for a moment: at Barnes and his reflection and beside that Bucky’s reflection in his dully-glinting cage.

‘The files said Radcliffe died of an aneurism,’ Barnes says, quiet.

‘He did, technically.’ Gupta looks between them. ‘Holden lost his wife in the Blip and he didn’t recover, okay? He couldn’t. And there were so many people who were grieving, broken, and Holden thought that we could use the Framework to help them, that they’d be able to get some sort of closure-’

‘Hold up.’ Sam shakes his head. ‘Exactly what does the Framework do?’

‘Like I said, it’s a virtual reality construct. But it evolves depending on the person who’s in it. They can build a world the way that they want it and it-it feels absolutely real. Time gets compressed, you can be in there a few hours but it feels like you’ve lived through months!’ Excitement at the possibility of it, at the science behind, overtakes her fatigue and fear. For a moment. The shine in her eyes dulls again.

‘Holden used himself as a subject but then he kept spending longer and longer in there. He was there with Agnes. His wife. He had everything he wanted, he was happy. There were rolling blackouts, power outages. Cal had the unit hooked up to a generator but we were running out of fuel and-’ She swipes at her eyes and her chin juts with an echo of defiance. ‘Look, you don’t know what it was like, okay? For the ones who were left behind. Supply chains collapsed, there was no food in the shops let alone fuel. It was hell. We had to try and get Holden out of there, so I went into the Framework to talk him out of there but he wouldn’t listen. He had forgotten his real life. All he could remember was the life he’d made in the Framework.’ Her face trembles horribly. ‘Nothing I said got through to him. I don’t think he’d have cared even it had. And then the generator went down. And it all just stopped. And the programme was so enmeshed with Holden’s synapses that it’s like his brain just exploded with the shock.’ A gurgle of horrified laughter in the back of her throat. ‘And then everyone came back. Agnes was back and Holden was dead. We- We thought at least we could make some good come out of it. We just wanted to help people. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.’

She wipes her face again, uselessly. Tears keep tracking down her cheeks. She gestures towards Bucky.

‘I though you’d figure out what had happened, somehow, but no-one came and it’s been two weeks and-’ She bites her lip. ‘I don’t know if being a super-soldier makes any difference. But if you just stop it, it could kill him and I don’t need that on my conscience. It’s bad enough.’

Just a break, one time, Sam thinks dully. Just one.

‘Can you send a message in to him?’ he asks, injecting more hope into his voice than he feels.

‘I’ve tried,’ she says. Lank hair has worked free from her ponytail and she gathers it all back again irritably. ‘But I don’t know if he can hear them. I don’t know what’s going on in there. We can write scenarios, make really complex programmes for people but I didn’t have time for that, so I just wrote a code, find a problem, solve it, and put him in there.’

Barnes pushes himself away from the wall. ‘Okay. I’ll go in. Talk to him.’

Sam shakes himself. ‘Hey, no, I should do it.’

‘Sam, we’re not risking your brain too.’

There would usually be some snarky comment added to the end of that, but not now. Barnes plants himself in the middle of the small room and glowers. Sam remains unmoved.

‘No offence, but wherever Bucky is right now I think meeting his robot double is just gonna freak him out.’

A muscle along Barnes’ jaw twitches. He blows out a breath and eyeballs Gupta. ‘Can we move this contraption with him still in it?’

She shakes her head. ‘No. It’s wired into the mains.’

‘We gotta get him out of here, Barnes - we’re on the clock, remember? There’s no other option.’

Barnes closes his eyes as though there’s an enormous headache behind them.

‘Fine,’ he says, eventually. ‘But you’ve got twenty minutes and then I’m pulling you out.’

Kate Gupta starts activating one of the other units, punching in a sequence of numbers. 

‘And what about Bucky after twenty minutes?’ Sam keeps his eyes on Barnes, on his controlled expression that can’t hide the haunted look that howls through the bones of his face.

‘It’s a risk we’ll have to take, Sam.’

‘It will be better if you both leave voluntarily,’ Gupta says, straightening up. ‘If you exit deliberately the programme detaches itself organically.’

‘So, what, we just will ourselves to wake up?’

She’s frowning, worrying at the frayed cuff of her ratty sweatshirt. ‘No… You have to pass through the exit code, that triggers the disengagement. We used to code it as a literal door to walk through, that’s how it would look in the Framework.’

‘Okay. How will I know which door to walk through?’

A pause. Machines whirr.

‘I can code in a sign. Something that you’d recognise. I can bundle it to attach to you so the exit code will track you. But you’ll have to be looking for it.’ She looks at him, expectant. 

Sam fumbles about in his mind for a handy symbol and comes up blank.

‘How about a star in a circle?’ Barnes drawls, one eyebrow going up.

Sam glares at him. ‘Seriously? The shield? Now?’

Barnes shrugs. ‘Yeah, you’re right. Not like it was ever important to either of you.’

Which-

Okay. Point.

And it is the sort of thing that gets scrawled and graffitied onto walls and, yes, doorways.

‘Okay, fine, a star in a circle it is.’ He turns to Gupta. ‘That okay?’

She nods. With something to actively do she seems calmer, her movements smooth and assured, more liveliness in her eyes. ‘Yes, just give me a couple of minutes to write it.’ She disappears into the outer room and they hear the rapid clacking of a keyboard.

‘Here,’ Barnes says suddenly, and starts pulling off the leather jacket. ‘He’s gonna want his stuff back.’ 

Dog-tags, his watch. 

‘Wait, where are you gonna be?’

One corner of his mouth lifts. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be here. Just wanna do a quick sweep in case there’re any nasty surprises just outside the door. Besides, like you said, if the first thing he sees is me that might just freak him out.’

Sam puts the little pile of belongings neatly into the footwell of one of the other units. Strips off his visor and the bulkier pieces of body armour. 

And stares at Bucky’s face, still peaceful, oblivious to what’s being played out around him. What kind of ideal world has he built for himself? he wonders. 

‘Aw, hell. I’m gonna get real up close and personal with Thirties Brooklyn, aren’t I?’ Sam asks accusingly.

Barnes is also studying Bucky; he doesn’t look at Sam but his lips quirk slightly. ‘Oh, I dunno…’

‘You better have made it less racist, is all,’ Sam mutters.

Kate Gupta comes back into the room. ‘Okay, we’re all set. You ready?’

Sam nods, glum and resolved. Under Gupta’s directions, he steps into the waiting unit. The metal restraints band his wrists as soon as his arms land on the rests and the halo closes around his head.

‘Twenty minutes,’ Barnes tells him, a blaze in his eyes.

Sam tries to nod and can’t. ‘Got it.’

The gurney tilts back slightly, the hum growing louder.

Guess I get to meet Skinny Steve after all, Sam thinks, and then he pitches into darkness

There’s a radio playing in the distance when Sam wakes, tinny and fading in and out. His face is mushed into sofa cushions and what feels like a broken spring pokes into his back. He catches the whiff of stale coffee and behind that the ever-pervasive scent of fish. Sam pushes himself up, blinking, feels the knot in his neck and rubs at it.

He sits on the terrible, battered couch with its faded upholstery and its familiar dips and lumps. He can feel himself shaking, breath whistling through his lungs. Worlds collide in his head and he grounds himself, concentrating on the thin patterned rug and the usual piles of papers and files on the desk. 

It’s all so blessedly, wonderfully normal and the relief of it is so enormous that Sam feels his chest crack open, the first clear breath he’s had in what seems like weeks so intense that it hurts. Sam scrubs his face, swipes at his eyes, almost laughing at himself. His hands shake slightly.

The calendar pinned up on the wall has the regular notes on ballgames, after school activities, appointments and payment due dates. He stares at it, indulging happily in the familiarity of the rhythms of life printed out in Sarah’s blocky capitals. 

Not just Sarah’s writing, though. 

Sam stares. 

In one square near the bottom the word Anniversary has been written in an elegant longhand. Two exclamation points have been added to the end in clunky black marker pen. A string of post-it notes follows, written in alternating hands.

We don't need the exclamation points.

Yes we do!!

No, we don’t.

YES WE DOOOOO!!!!!!

And that- That is not a thing. Not yet, anyway. Because this isn’t real. Sam feels his stomach flip, coldness creeping up his cheeks and crawling across his scalp. 

He shoves up from the couch, opens the office door and steps out into the Delacroix sunshine.

Chapter Text

Sam follows the sound of the radio, recognising an old Motown number when he gets close enough. There’s a rhythmic clattering thump-thump of crates being stacked and every now and then a voice joins in the chorus, cheerfully if slightly out of tune. Sam rounds the corner and stops. Bucky Barnes, in worn old jeans and a faded Wilson Family Seafood T-shirt glittering with fish-scales and streaked with dirt, has himself stationed in a shady part of the dock and is neatly piling up the empty crates ready for the next day’s catch.

Sam watches him, the loose-limbed ease of his movements and the flesh-and-blood curl of both his left and right hands. 

‘Oh, Buck…’

Sam checks the time - twenty minutes - and steps forward, throwing up a hand to shield his eyes against the sudden flare of lowering sun, bright copper in the flat blue sky. ‘Bucky!’

The other man straightens and then grins at him. ‘Oh, hey. I was starting to think we’d need a canon to get you up.’

It’s the same easy smile that comes so frequently down in Delacroix, sunny and sweet and it catches in the warm summer-blue of his eyes. Bucky places the crate on top of the stack, wipes off his hands. ‘I’m almost done - you wanna get a beer before heading home?’

Further down the walkway the Paul & Darlene bobs happily, fresh paint gleaming. Carlos is mending one of the nets, waves over when he sees Sam. Sam raises a hand. A bit of torn-off fishing line snagged on one of the wooden uprights, twisting in the breeze and glinting silver. Sam runs his tongue over dry lips, feels the snarl of chapped skin. ‘Beer… Yeah, that- That’d be nice,’ he says vaguely. He can smell the salt on the air, taste it on his lips, feel the sun hot against his cheek. The Supremes sounding out on Sarah’s battered old radio.

Bucky tilts his head, a divot between his brows. ‘Sam? You good?’

Sam pulls it all back. He needs to focus. He stares around the dock, knows he probably looks wild-eyed and kind of out of it but it’s the shield. He has to find the shield. 

There.

The door leading into the storehouse to their right. It’s like a kid’s drawing scrawled in wobbly chalk lines: the white star in the centre of a red circle, patchy blue shaded in between. Sam releases a breath. ‘Yeah, I’m… Okay, Bucky, I know that this gonna sound crazy to you right now, but- But this. All this, it-it’s not real.’

Bucky’s expression turns thoughtful; he chews on the inside of his lip and then a hand comes up, rests on Sam’s shoulder, warm and reassuring.

‘Hey,’ he says. ‘I get it. I know it can feel that way sometimes. It’s been a rough few months, that last mission was- Hell, I don’t need to tell you what it was like. But it’s okay. You’re okay.’ All earnest concern in that unwavering gaze. Even when I had nothing, Steve had told him; Then how could you have thrown it all away? Sam thinks, indiscriminate anger flaring. 

Bucky squeezes Sam’s shoulder. It’s his left hand, flesh and blood and bone. There’s a ring on his finger, gold inlaid with black seams of vibranium. Sam almost wants to cry about it.

‘That’s not-’ He studies Bucky’s worried face. ‘How did we meet?’

‘What?’

‘Just- Just humour me. How did we meet?’

Bucky frowns, his eyes narrowing and his head tilts. He searches Sam’s face and when he speaks it’s cautious, holding in the dry edge that usually accompanies their easy banter. ‘Do I get a prize if I get it right?’

‘I’m not being an asshole here, man. This is important. Please. Tell me how we met.’

Bucky blows out a breath, takes a step back, an annoyed fine written into his movements. ‘All right. We met after Steve lapped you around the Memorial Pool,’ he says, flat. ‘I was the one who bought you a coffee from the fancy coffee-cart because I know how to make friends like a normal person instead of an eight-year-old with an attitude problem.’

Sam frowns, following it through and his stomach flips.

‘You were both on the Valkyrie.’

‘Yes,’ Bucky says slowly, watching Sam carefully. ‘That’s not exactly news.’

Both on the Valkyrie when it crashed. Both in the ice. Sam feels the pity of it deep in his bones like a pain.

‘Where’s Steve now?’

‘Wh-’ Bucky throws out his hands, impatience starting to edge into his voice. ‘I dunno, the last message I got they were in, what, North Carolina? Natasha had found another dumb roadside attraction she wanted them to go look at. The world’s largest chest of drawers or something. Sam, they sent you the same photos.’

Natasha. Of course, Natasha. Sam had never had the chance to see her again, and even if it’s just for a moment… Even if she isn’t the real Natasha- 

So many things to push away. 

Sam looks at Bucky curiously, cautiously, takes a gamble and asks:

‘Where’s Tony?’

Bucky blinks, surprise warring with annoyance. ‘How should I know? He’ll be doing whatever it is billionaires do when he’s not saving the world or bankrolling one of Pepper’s charity projects. Sam, what is all this?’

Sam checks his watch again. Fuck.

‘Okay, look, I need you to trust me, man.’

Bucky takes in a careful breath, wipes the back of one wrist against his forehead. ‘You know I do.’

Sam nods. ‘This is not your life. I know right now it feels like it and you have all of these memories but this is not reality. We are in a computer programme, both of us, this is-this is just all wrapped up in our consciousness. We’re strapped into some machinery in a fucked-up old SHIELD base in the Adirondacks and, man, I was never crazy about mountains before but I fucking hate them now.’

There’s silence were Sam can hear the lap of easy wavelets, the hollow bump of wood-on-wood, the cry of a gull out on the water. Bucky moves slow, like Sam is one of the feral cats Bucky always leaves food out for and doesn’t want to spook. Pulls out his phone with one hand, reaches for Sam with the other.

‘Okay, Sam,’ he says, level and gentle, ‘I’m gonna call Sarah, then I’m taking you to the hospital, okay? Something’s not quite-’

Sam bats his arm away. ‘Bucky, no, listen to me. I need you to think. Really think, hard. You have got to remember.’

Wouldn’t it be kinder not to, asks a quiet, traitorous voice in his mind. Maybe. It would also be cowardly, and it’s not Sam’s choice to make. And…

It isn’t Bucky at his most relaxed, most content, not when Sam really looks at him. There’s still a line of tension running through his spine and shoulders, still that shadow of tiredness around his eyes. When Bucky is truly free, when happiness runs through him like a great river he damn near glows with it, practically swaggers in and lights the place up. This is not that. The reality is there, just beneath the surface, if Sam can find the right words.

Bucky presses his lips together. ‘What am I supposed to remember, Sam?’

I’m sorry, Sam thinks. I’m so sorry.

‘The raid on the train. During the war.’

Bucky’s eyes narrow, puzzled. ‘What, the one Zola was on?’ He shrugs slightly, like it wasn’t a big deal. ‘What about it?’

‘You fell-’

Frowning, Bucky shakes his head. ‘No. Well, almost, but Steve yanked me back in. Damn near dislocated my shoulder but I guess it could’ve been worse.’

Steve, so many times, eyes red-rimmed with grief and exhaustion and his voice a whisper, If I’d just moved faster, I almost had him.

‘He didn’t save you. He tried but he didn’t. You fell and everyone thought you were dead.’

‘That isn’t what hap-’

‘You lost your arm,’ Sam continues and he hates the unforgiving sound of his own voice now, hates what he’s doing. ‘HYDRA found you. You were their prisoner. And- And they tortured you. Brainwashed you. For seventy years. They put a new arm in you, silver with a red star. They made you an assassin, the Winter Soldier. That’s how we met. On a highway in DC and you- The Winter Soldier tried to kill us. Me and Nat and Steve.’

‘No, that’s-’ Horror, low and rough, twisting about the words.

‘You didn’t remember anything, not Steve, not even who you were. HYDRA took everything from you.’

He’s never said it out loud before; he’s read it, known it, had made a statement about all of the after in those jumble of weeks after they’d all come back from dust and nothingness and it had gone into the file for Bucky’s hastily-arranged pardon. Tasting the words on his tongue, hearing them on the air and the cracking pain in his own voice saying them feels like more than he can bear. There’s a faint frown on Bucky’s face. He’s pale under his golden Louisiana tan and he stares at his left hand, curling and uncurling the fingers. Sam pushes on. 

‘You got free. And then the Wakandans helped you, they got rid of the trigger words-’

For a moment he hovers. He can’t. He can’t say them, he can’t do that. 

Bucky’s shaking his head, denial, or trying to clear it, maybe, fear and confusion clouding his eyes. ‘Sam, please-’

‘We’re partners now, man, you and me. That’s how you met Sarah. And Cass and AJ. And I know I’m always giving you shit about you usurping their affections but I’m glad about it, okay? I’m glad. Because you’re my parter and I love your dumb cyborg ass.’ He takes another breath, tries to sound a little less hysterical. ‘You went missing, like, two weeks ago and I didn’t know at first because… Fuck.’ Sam laughs at himself, blinks hard. ‘They built a literal robot double of you and I couldn’t tell the difference and he’s as big a pain in the ass as you ever were.’

He can see Bucky’s chest shaking, the grip on his phone so hard it looks in danger of shattering. ‘Just wait, slow down-’

‘There’s no time!’ Sam hisses, points at the door with its chalked-on shield. ‘We need to go through that door. That’s the way out of the computer programme and we need to go because in, like, two minutes someone’s gonna flip a switch and all of this just stops. And it- It might kill you, Buck. And I did not go through all of this for that to be the outcome. I’m not the Captain America who loses Bucky Barnes, okay? History ain’t repeating itself here.’

The radio is playing Etta James, sweet and slow, one of Sarah’s favourites. Because of course. Because this little bit of built-up dream bubble is perfect. 

‘I’m gonna go through the door, Buck. And I really, really need you to go through it, too. I need you to trust me.’

There’s a strange look on Bucky’s face. ‘Is this Captain America asking me to follow him into hell?’

There’s a whole world there that Sam doesn’t have the time or the inclination to explore. ‘If that’ll make you do it then yeah. Other than that, it’s just me. Sam. I’m just asking my friend to come with me.’

Sam pushes the door open, cool shade beyond, sunlight filtering through the slatted roof. He turns, angling a look over his shoulder. Bucky’s phone has started ringing and he stares down at the screen.

Sam pushes through the doorway.

It’s like breaking the surface of the water, the same pressure around his head and then a lungful of clear air. Sam gasps, tilts forwards and the bands around his wrists retract, the halo folding back from his head. He slithers out of the machine, turns immediately to where Bucky is still held in his, face serene and his breathing even.

Sam peers into his face. ‘C’mon, man. C’mon. Don’t do this to me.’

It’s horribly quiet. Sam can hear the blood pounding in his ears.

Bucky pulls in a rushing breath, his eyes snapping open and he all but falls out of the unit when the restraints retract. The IV snags out of his hand, blood oozing across his skin.

Sam grasps him, all of Bucky’s limbs seemingly awkward and uncooperative and he feels a pair of hands, one metal one flesh, grasp around his forearms. ‘You’re okay,’ Sam tells him. ‘You’re okay.’

Bucky nods, head bowed and when he looks up his eyes are shockingly clear and achingly raw.

‘It seemed so real,’ Bucky says, helpless, voice gravelly where he hasn’t spoken in so long.

‘I know. I know.’

Bucky ducks his head again, like he’s trying to hide as his face quivers and Sam feels a little piece of himself shattering. But just a little. Because behind that is a fierce, sparking triumph and joy. 

‘You followed me out, huh? You trusted me.’

Bucky looks up at him again and this time a faint smile pulls at his lips. ‘Trusted my friend? Always.’

Sam pulls him into his arms, doesn’t hide the way his own breath stutters and tears soak into the collar of Bucky’s T-shirt. Bucky’s arms wrap around Sam. There’s nothing held back as they hold onto each other.

‘Thanks for finding me,’ Bucky says.

Sam snorts. ‘Man. I’m thinking of getting you microchipped. Like a Poodle or something.’

A huff of soggy laughter warm against Sam’s neck. ‘Poodle? What, you couldn’t have said a cooler dog? Like a German Shepherd or a Husky?’

‘Oh, you think you cool enough to be a German Shepherd, huh? No way, man, those dogs are rock stars. The Husky I can kinda get, what with the blue eyes and all.’

He hears Bucky sniff and then feels him hook his chin over Sam’s shoulder.

‘Is the robot-me part real?’

‘Oh, yeah, completely. But don’t worry, he’s cool. He’s been helping me find you.’

‘Oh. That’s, uh … good.’

There’s a faint electromagnetic hum as Bucky’s arm recalibrates, the plates shifting.

‘This is a really long hug,’ Bucky says after a moment.

‘This is a totally normal bro hug, shut up.’ So maybe Sam has his eyes closed. So what. It’s not like Bucky’s actively trying to let go, either.

‘Not that this isn’t touching and all,’ a voice breaks in, ‘but you might wanna postpone the big reunion.’

Sam feels an odd shiver, actually seeing them together. It shouldn’t seem any stranger than anything that has happened up until now but when Bucky lets go of Sam and he and Barnes face each other, Sam feels a wave of unreality. 

Two intent stares, the dark heads tilting at the same precise angle as each examines the other, both reflected again in the mirror behind them.

And Sam also becomes aware of the differences. Bucky is still strong and upright but the two weeks in captivity have taken their toll: next to Barnes he looks haggard, his face too thin and heavy stubble along his jaw, dark circles under his eyes.

‘Oh,’ Barnes says, ‘I forgot these. Sorry.’ He pulls the phone and kimoyo beads out of his jeans pocket.

Bucky blinks at them, at him, and then takes them cautiously. ‘Thanks…’

The blue line on the phone pulses happily. ‘Welcome back, Ingcuka Emhlophe! It is good to see that you are well and restored to us.’

Lips slightly parted, Bucky stares at the phone. ‘That- That’s Griot,’ he says numbly. ‘On my phone. Griot is on my phone. This is hell.’

There’s a huffing sound. ‘I will attribute that statement to your current stress levels,’ Griot says sternly, ‘which I imagine are high.’

Kate Gupta hovers in the doorway, anxious and uncertain. ‘Is he okay?’ she asks softly. 

Bucky’s gaze lands on her and his face hardens. Barnes holds up a hand.

‘She’s helping us now. You can yell at her later.’

Bucky rears back slightly. He watches Barnes, chewing on the inside of his lip. ‘Fair enough,’ he says.

Barnes nods, approving. ‘Right, now that we’ve got that settled, we have bigger problems.’

Sam sighs, starts clipping his body armour back into place. ‘Of course we do. What, more creepy robots?’

‘Uh-huh. A few dozen or so,’ Barnes says mildly and behind him Gupta laughs, a hysterical note to it.

‘Dozen? There are hundreds of them! They- They’ve been replicating themselves!’

‘Okay,’ Barnes says, bobbing his head in acknowledgement, ‘yes, so it’s pretty much The Matrix down there.’

‘What’s The Matrix?’ Bucky asks, bewildered.

‘It’s a movie,’ Sam tells him. ‘Sci-fi. It’s a classic, you’ll love it.’

Barnes shrugs lightly. ‘Eh. It’s okay.’ He looks at Bucky. ‘Makes sense of a whole bunch of other cultural references; so, there’s that.’

‘Wait, when have you seen The Matrix?’ Sam asks and then scowls. ‘Is that what you’ve been doing instead of sleeping? Watching a bunch of dumb movies?’

‘You just said it was a classic, Samuel,’ Barnes says, loftily, arms folding across his chest.

Bucky makes a choking sound, pressing it behind one fist against his mouth. Sam turns a withering glance on him.

‘Really?’

Bucky’s lips twitch and there’s clear amusement pushing through the shadows in his blue eyes. ‘C’mon, this is pretty funny.’

‘This is the thanks I get for bustin’ my ass to save yours,’ Sam mutters, tapping at his HUD. ‘Two of you ganging up on me.’

He can’t see them because he isn’t looking but Sam knows that they’re exchanging glances over his head. Assholes.

The feed from the perimeter comms are still scrambled. ‘We need to get moving,’ he says.

There’s a faint clink as Bucky, having located his small pile of possessions, passes his dog-tags over his head, the chain settling around his neck and the silver gleaming under the lights. The motion of even crouching down and standing up again seems to have sent him off-kilter and he lists slightly, his face white. Sam reaches out and gets his hands batted away irritably.

‘I’m fine,’ Bucky mutters and Sam rolls his eyes.

‘Fine my ass,’ Sam tells him.

Bucky straightens his jacket into place and eyeballs Sam, holding himself very upright. The familiarity of it all makes Sam want to hug him again because relief is still jangling down his nerves - and Sam also sort of wants to hit him because after everything would it really kill Bucky not to be a pain in the ass, just once?

Before Sam can decide between either course of action, Barnes tilts his head, his eyes narrowing.

‘Wait here,’ he says. ‘I’m gonna go check something.’ 

He stalks out of the room. 

Bucky stares after him, frowning faintly, an assessing look in his eyes. Sam touches his arm.

‘He’s okay. Barnes, I mean; he’s a good guy, you don’t have to worry.’

It feels strange, reassuring Bucky about, well, himself, more or less. But then, Sam thinks with a pang, it isn’t all that different than things he’s said about Bucky to Bucky before today.

‘What?’ Bucky blinks at him. ‘No, yeah, it’s not that, it’s just-’ The frown deepens and he looks at Sam speculatively. ‘Is that really how I walk?’

Sam stares for a moment, incredulous. ‘That- Yeah. I keep telling you, you have a whole murderstrut situation going on.’

Bucky digests this and doesn’t look entirely unhappy about it. ‘Huh.’ He looks around the room and his face tightens again. ‘Gotta get out of here,’ he mutters.

They move into the outer room, Gupta hovering nervously. The apologies she so clearly wants to make lodged in her throat. Bucky works on not really looking at her but he flinches slightly when her hands flutter past him to the keyboards linked to the monitors.

‘What are you doing?’ He grinds it out. He still doesn’t look at her.

‘I’m erasing the Framework programme,’ she says, quiet. ‘No-one will be able to use it. Whatever happened in there… It’s yours. It’s private.’

Barnes rejoins them, folding a loose flap of skin back into place on his bare arm that has resealed itself by the time he reaches Sam and the others at the consoles.

‘Okay, two things,’ he says. The set of his mouth is grim. ‘The asshole robots have breached the lower levels and they’re pissed. I managed to barricade them out but that’s not gonna hold for very long. Second thing: there’s a whole bunch of computers and machinery and what looks like a countdown timer and there’s not much time left on it.’

‘Shit!’ Gupta hisses, her eyes fearful again. ‘The malware. They must have activated the code.’

She starts running and they follow, tearing down corridors until they spill into a larger room filled with a sophisticated computer array. The black console table in the centre has a shimmering blue holo-display, what looks like a DNA sequence but is all strings of code, each one turning red as a new connection is made.

Sam circles it uneasily. ‘What is this?’

‘Just… Give me a minute.’ Gupta moves frantically between consoles and monitors. Barnes stands, solid and unmoving, eyes tracking her.

Sam circles back around to Bucky. ‘Guess we should get you up to speed, huh?’

There’s a ripple across Bucky’s shoulders. ‘Murderous megalomaniacs and mad science. Am I missing anything?’

God, he sounds beyond weary, and it’s not surprising given the givens but it’s still unnerving to hear it so clearly written into Bucky’s voice, to see the slump of his shoulders despite his obvious efforts to keep them straight and square.

‘Buck,’ Sam says, soft and he gets a flash of blue eyes and something approximating a smile.

‘I’m okay, Sam.’ He nods in Gupta’s direction. ‘Where’s the other one? There were two of them, right?’

Sam presses his lips together. ‘They killed him. They’re using Gupta’s family as leverage on her. Sure, she got involved in this willingly but I don’t think she realised exactly what she was involved in until it was too late.’

Good people making spectacularly dumb decisions isn’t exactly the best defence, Sam thinks. He’s witnessed first hand the damage done by people who meant no harm or thought they were helping or did the wrong things for the right reasons.

Bucky closes his eyes for a moment, opens them again and nods.

Gupta backs away from the central console, her hands tangling into her hair. ‘I can’t stop it,’ she says.

‘Can’t stop what?’ Sam feels his worn-thin patience snap. ‘What is this?’

‘It’s targeted malware, it deletes and overrides existing networks with a new operating system. The algorithm detects code bundles and incorporates them into itself when it works out how to unlock them.’

‘Cyber warfare,’ Bucky says, a grim turn at the corners of his mouth. ‘Did you design this, too?’

There’s a flash of anger across her face. ‘No!’ She looks at Sam and Barnes. ‘I told you that Craig guy was smart. This is what he’s been working on. I heard them talking about it, I didn’t know he’d actually done it.’

‘What systems are they targeting?’

Her eyes are wild. ‘All of them! The Pentagon, ATC, security, banking- Everything!’

Anarchy, Sam thinks. The kind of chaos that people with no scruples and a Goddamn robot army can easily take advantage of and manipulate.

‘It takes time to get through a firewall, doesn’t it?’ Sam asks. ‘I mean, this can’t just happen in seconds. Right?’

‘If they have the codes to breach the system, then yes. It can.’

Barnes tilts his head back, gazes at the ceiling. ‘And if you have a high-ranking senator sitting on security committees, you’ve probably got access to those codes.’

The silence that follows feels like a living thing, heavy and oppressive and waiting.

‘We have to shut it down,’ Bucky says. ‘Now.’

Gupta shakes her head. ‘I told you, I can’t.’

‘I thought you were a computer specialist.’ His eyes glitter.

‘I design AI, I’m not a hacker, I don’t deal with security systems. Coding malware isn’t that hard, but I don’t know how to get through a firewall. It isn’t the same thing.’

‘Is there something Griot can do?’ Sam tries to keep his voice level.

Bucky blinks back at Sam’s expectant face and then pulls out his phone and the kimoyo beads. Blue washes over the console table.

‘Don’t wanna rush you here, buddy, but if you could speed this up.’ Sam curls his fingers into his palms to stop himself from drumming them.

‘The system’s unlock code is changing too rapidly for me to get a fix on it,’ Griot says and he sounds eerily calm. ‘I would have to breach the underlying system and write killware of my own to disengage the countdown.’

‘And how long would that take?’ Bucky asks, like he already knows the answer.

‘At least an hour, if not more. There is not enough time.’

Sam winces. There’s never enough time but whatever, they’ve dealt with that before. ‘Just get started, we’ll think of something-’

‘Sam, no.’ Barnes unfolds himself from his corner. ‘We’re about to be overrun, remember?’

‘We can take ‘em,’ Bucky says, his chin lifting.

Barnes looks him over and it’s almost pitying. ‘Hate to break it to you, pal, but you’re not looking so hot right now.’

His jaw bunches, stubborn and defiant. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Yeah, that I’m fine malarkey doesn’t fly much with Sam - it sure as shit doesn’t with me.’ He smiles slightly. ‘Good effort, though. But you’ve been through enough.’ Barnes turns to Sam: ‘I found a bunch of C-4 and some detonators. This place has gotta blow and it’s gotta be now.’

Sam nods. ‘Yeah, okay. Set the timers and…’

Even before it’s out of his mouth, Sam knows. Maybe it’s in that wry curl at the corners of Barnes’ mouth or the resignation in his eyes.

‘See, here’s the thing,’ Barnes says and he’s horribly calm. Sam’s stomach flips. ‘There are no timers and the remote control won’t work from outside. You said it yourself, this place is a Faraday Cage.’ He bobs his head towards the console where the code strings are still snapping red. ‘Ironic, huh?’ His lips press together. ‘It’s a manual detonation or nothing.’

Sam feels his brain fizzing, too many complex emotions fighting each other for dominance. ‘Just give me five minutes-’

‘We don’t have five minutes.’

‘We have grenades-’

‘Think you can jury rig a remote detonation in the next sixty seconds? ‘Cos that I’d like to see.’

Sam glares at him, almost numb with fury. ‘Put those twenty minutes to real good use, huh?’

Barnes actually shrugs and Sam feels like killing him himself. 

‘Contingencies,’ he says.

‘Jesus, man, you promised me!’

The harsh lines of Barnes’ face soften into a more gentle expression, something of the sweetness Sam has grown accustomed to creeping back in. ‘I know. And I’m not doing this on principle… Well, I am, but on the principle of it being the right thing, not because I’m on some suicide mission.’

Gupta steps up to him. ‘You don’t have to do this. I should stay. I mean, it’s just flipping a switch, right?’

Barnes’ face works for a moment and then settles into amusement that looks almost fond. ‘Yeah, no, that’s not happening. This part is not on you. And seriously, you think any of us are gonna let you do that? C’mon, what do you take me for?’ A smile ghosts his lips. ‘You built me better than that.’

Sam hears a faint choking sound. Behind him Bucky is shaking his head and there’s a suspicious damp glitter to his eyes.

Barnes looks over at Sam, thoughtful. ‘You treated me like a person, right from the start. Okay, minus the five minutes you spent freaking out but I was freaking out a lot longer than that. You didn’t treat me like a thing even when I told you you should and- And that meant everything, Sam. You and Sarah, both-’ His eyes slide to Bucky and there is clear amusement in his face at whatever he sees in his counterpart’s. ‘Don’t worry, it’s more or less exactly how you left things.’

Bucky narrows his eyes slightly. ‘More or less?’

It’s greeted with a faint smile. ‘Don’t fuck it up,’ Barnes tells him.

It’s a long moment of, if not communication, at least understanding. Bucky nods. And Sam rounds on him furiously.

‘Do something! If anyone can get through to him, it’s you!’

There’s a distant look in Bucky’s eyes, like it’s some other war he’s fighting. ‘It’s his choice, Sam,’ he says evenly and there’s a punishing weight to it.

‘It’s not so bad,’ Barnes continues, almost conversational now. ‘I’ve already died twice. The dying part’s actually not so bad. What is it they say, third times’s the charm? Maybe this is the one that’ll stick.’

And that’s when Sam’s grasp on the threads of his fraying emotions goes. ‘No, that’s- No! This is not how it ends. I am not the Captain America who loses Bucky Barnes!’

Barnes smiles at him, sad and sweet. ‘You haven’t lost me, Sam. I’m standing right next to you.’

Bucky has a hand around Sam’s arm, pulling him and even now the pull is relentless. ‘Sam, c’mon, we gotta go. They’re coming.’

‘No! This is-’

‘Don’t waste this!’ Bucky hisses at him.

Barnes nods, approving. ‘See? He gets it.’ His head tilts as though he’s suddenly thought of something. ‘You know what? Never once did I dream of an electric sheep.’

‘God, you asshole,’ Sam chokes out, not caring about the tears that won’t stop. ‘So what did you dream about?’

‘Living,’ Barnes says softly. ‘So you better fucking go and do some of it.’ He turns, already out of the door before Sam can fully process the movement.

‘Barnes-’

‘Sam!’

Rough hands bundle Sam out of the room, into the corridor, down the passageways leading to the blast doors and the outside. Somehow it’s Bucky, slower in his movements and breathing harder than Sam has ever known him, who’s propelling them all forward, shoving at Sam and keeping one hand at Gupta’s back, guiding her without quite holding her up. 

He hears Bucky swear behind him and looks back. Shadowy figures coming up behind them and closing fast. Bucky wrenches the shield off Sam’s back and gives him another push. ‘Get her out of here.’

Sam grabs hold of Gupta, puts on a burst of speed and all but throws her through the blast doors when he reaches them. He hears the clash of metal and vibranium and rock and runs back into the chamber just in time to catch the shield on a rebound and send it back out at an angle that ricochets off the walls, taking down the remaining hostiles in its path. Bucky plucks it out of the air neatly when it reaches him. There’s another wave of hostiles coming at them.

They run.

They barrel through the opening in the blast doors and slam them shut on the other side. Sam uses one of Redwing’s lasers to take out the keypad, reducing it to melted plastic and twisted metal.

The temperature has dropped, the night air stinging with a chill. Sam feels sweat rolling down his back. Kate Gupta is bent over, hands on her knees and she’s breathing hard. Trees rustle, wood creaks. It’s peaceful. 

They feel the blast more than hear it, a low rumble like thunder deep in the earth and the world shakes, dust and stones bouncing down the mountainside and covering them in a layer of debris. Another answering boom, fainter, a chain reaction going off somewhere.

The shaking stops. Everything settles. No evidence of the inferno raging on the other side of the doors.

Gupta covers her face with her hands, her shoulders shaking.

Sam pulls in a breath, then another, counts it out and braces himself.

Headlights flare on, the troop carrier and Jeeps tucked behind the tree-line. Men and women in black tac gear, armed with the by-now-familiar HYDRA weaponry form a semi-circle in the little clearing beyond the blast doors.

Evans stands at the head, Craig Denton beside him and they both look grim and weirdly eager, like they’re looking forward to what comes next.

‘You thought you could just walk into my house and get away with it?’ There’s a sneer on Evans’ face as he looks them over.

‘We just blew your house to shit, motherfucker,’ Sam tells him. The shield feels snug on his arm, Bucky solid and steady at his side. ‘Your little cyber-strike is over.’

Denton starts forward, anger twisting his face. Evans holds out a repressive hand, pushing him back. ‘It’s just a set-back. You wrote the programme once, just write it again.’

Denton subsides but he glares at them balefully, fingers twitching around the trigger on his rifle.

Sam feels Bucky stiffen, his already pale face going bone-white. ‘Sam-’

‘It’s okay,’ Sam tells him, steady, barely above a whisper. He feels more than sees the track of Bucky’s gaze towards him and then the nod of his head.

Evans puts his eyes on Bucky. ‘You still the robot?’

Bucky shrugs out his shoulders and his smile is unpleasant. ‘Not the droid you’re looking for. Sorry, pal.’

The major nods, a muscle bunching along his jaw. He looks at Kate Gupta. ‘You lying little bitch.’

‘I told you she wasn’t gonna do it,’ Denton hisses at him. ‘We should have killed her along with the other one.’

‘Cal!’ She says, too angry to be afraid. ‘His name was Cal!’

Bucky grabs her, pushes her behind him. ‘Don’t move,’ he tells her.

‘You’re a real disappointment, Barnes,’ Evans says, pale eyes hard and his lips twisted into a sneer. ‘You used to really be something - but now you’d rather spend all your time with that?’ He jerks his chin in Sam’s direction.

Bucky squints at him, his brow furrowing. ‘Is that supposed to be an insult?’ He turns to Sam. ‘I think that’s an insult but I am a hundred percent taking it as a compliment.’

‘Probably the right call,’ Sam agrees.

Bucky swings around again. ‘Before this goes any further: why build a robot version of me? What was the point?’

Evans grins nastily. ‘Life Model Decoy - clue’s in the name. It was exactly that: a decoy for Captain Clown over there, keep him dancing while we got on with the real work.’

‘Decoy… He was a person,’ Bucky says and there’s a thread of anger in his voice.

‘It was fucking robot, for God’s sake. And by the sound of it, thanks to you all now it’s just scrap metal.’

Gupta lets out a squeal of fury and Bucky grabs her again, holding her in place out of any line of fire.

Evans turns to Denton and jerks his head. ‘Vaporise ‘em. And then we’re pulling out.’

Denton steps forward, raises the rifle with its weirdly bulbous barrel and pulls the trigger.

Nothing happens.

‘What the fuck?’ Denton stares at the weapon in his hands, pulls the trigger repeatedly.

‘Yeah, we’re jamming that. All of them, actually,’ Sam tells him and it’s his turn to grin, wide and unpleasant. ‘Oh, and we didn’t come alone.’

Sam will never deny that he appreciates a bit of spectacle - he’s an adrenaline junkie with wings, of course he does - and War Machine descending in a whirring rush of air, all gleaming armour and glowing repulsers is pretty damn spectacular. The weapons built into his arms are on display and in the small clearing he looks huge. The face plate retracts and Rhodey takes in the scene.

‘Major Evans,’ he says, calm. ‘I have a feeling we’re looking at a court martial here.’

The sneer is back and the major’s voice comes out low. ‘You think I’m afraid of you, boy?’

‘I don’t give a fuck what you are,’ Rhodes tells him, cold and unmoved.

The militia are starting to get restive, low murmurs and uncertain looks being exchanged.

‘Shut up!’ Evans glares at them, turns back to Rhodes, to Sam and Bucky behind him. ‘This all you got?’

‘Oh, this is more than enough,’ Sam calls back. ‘But we wanted to make a point.’

Two more figures descend from where they’d been concealed on a ledge higher up on the rock face. Deep blue and bright gold flashing; they land light and lithe. Behind the line of weaponed-up would-be soldiers, the trees rustle and the spears are visible first under the white light, then the red tunics, and the Dora Milaje take their positions.

One of the figures in blue twists around, her helmet retracting long enough that she inclines her head graciously at them. ‘Ingcuka Emhlope. It is good to see you.’

‘Aneka?’ Bucky says faintly.

She smiles in response and her helmet snaps back. She takes a defensive stance, her daggers ready in each hand.

Rats getting ready to leave the ship, Sam thinks, seeing the panic starting to ripple through the would-be terrorists. Evans’ face is clammy but his eyes have taken on a slightly distant look, something a little unhinged. ‘You think I’m surrendering to them?’

‘I would really love to see that,’ Rhodes says. ‘But even more I’d love to see them whoop your sad white ass.’

As far as fights go, this one is pretty much over before it’s even really begun.

Aneka and her partner keep up a constant stream of covering fire, their weapon blasts lighting up the sky. The shield gets tossed between Sam and Bucky, deflecting stray blasts and the occasional bullet that pings from the back-up weapons from the few hostile targets who are a bit more willing to take on Captain America and a slightly sub-par but still blisteringly dangerous Bucky Barnes.

None of them last long. 

Rhodes lays out Evans with a repulser blast and it would be easy for War Machine to blast him out of existence. But as the man staggers to his feet one final time, Rhodes pulls back and it’s Ayo’s spear that takes him down again, swiping his feet out from under him before she smashes the shaft against the side of his head. 

Denton ends up pinned to the ground, one of Aneka’s daggers passing through the meat of his shoulder and into the packed-down earth. His other arm, still clinging hopelessly to his defunct rifle gets wrenched out of its socket with a sickening crunch, Aneka’s teeth bared in a snarl. 

All save one of the vehicle headlights have been knocked out; Rhodes uses the augments on his armour to send out a light source. The dull clash of vibranium dies away, the sound already muted by the metal’s force-absorbing properties. Heavy breathing and faint moans.

Ayo crosses the ground, imperious, walking across the bodies of her fallen foes as though they were flies. She stops in front of them.

‘James.’

Bucky lets out a soft breath and they move toward each other, a swift embrace that still holds a world of meaning. 

‘Bast be praised,’ Ayo says when she releases him, her dark eyes clear and lustrous and happy. And then she frowns slightly. ‘Where is Ingcuka Yombane?’

Bucky’s eyebrows startle upwards and then his face takes on a sombre cast. ‘He got us out. He didn’t make it.’

Some of Ayo’s sunshine joy dims, long eyelashes curling against her cheeks. ‘We will mourn him as one of our own who has fallen.’

Bucky’s throat bobs, a pained complicated expression in his face.

A shriek cuts the air: Aneka has unceremoniously pulled her blade from Denton’s shoulder and she wipes it carefully with a cloth, unbothered by the man’s incoherent babbling. There are a lot of things that Sam would like to say to him. Then he thinks about Michelle Johnson reading children’s stories to her comatose sister. He turns away, finds Bucky and strides across to him.

Bucky, leaning against a bit of rocky outcropping, looks up as Sam reaches him and shoves himself up, exhaustion inscribed into every movement of muscle and bone.

‘This is gonna be a hell of a debrief, huh?’

‘Debrief can wait,’ Sam says, firm, gets his arm around Bucky’s shoulders. ‘Let’s go home.’

The lab lights have dimmed, the rush of technicians and assistants quieted and the great space is serene, its peace broken only by the faint electromagnetic whirr of sleek machines as they run their diagnostics and upgrades ready for the following day.

Shuri enjoys the stimulation of so many people around her, their ideas and opinions a constant stream of innovation and creation - along with her usual thudding music and energetic motion. 

But the quiet now feels right.

She leans heavily against the edge of the sand table, examining the intricate curves of a human brain mapped into code and rotating gently, the holographic image shimmering against the shadowy recesses of the lab’s dark corners. Her grip on the edge hides the way her hands are shaking.

‘It would be a form of immortality,’ Griot observes. ‘The synthetic brain could be transplanted into host bodies indefinitely.’

And, oh, the temptation… To keep the people you love with you, unchanged and intact, forever.

‘It’s everything he would have hated,’ Shuri says softly and feels a thickness in her throat. ‘But White Wolf is well? He is safe?’ 

‘He is, Princess,’ Griot tells her with infinite patience, yet again. 

He has told her this, told her all that happened. She has spoken to Captain Wilson, to Ayo and even seen with her own eyes Bucky’s dear face over a brief video call.

Then why does it feel like she’s his killer, to do this?

Griot is a warm, comforting presence. Strange how she can always feel him there, waiting for when she needs him.

‘White Wolf and Captain Wilson have returned to Brooklyn. I believe that they will go down to Captain Wilson’s hometown in Louisiana in due course.’

‘He spends a great deal of his time there, our White Wolf.’

‘I believe that there are certain attractions for him there,’ Griot says, his attempt at an innocent tone undercut by an inherent knowingness.

Shuri smiles. ‘You are a terrible gossip, Griot.’

‘Do you not wish to hear the gossip?’

‘You may tell me later.’ She looks back up at the elegant endless lines of code wrapping around each other in their perfect design. And she sighs, heavy. ‘I have to say goodbye to a friend, first.’

‘Of course, Princess,’ Griot says and withdraws.

For long moments, Shuri stands at the table in her vigil all of her own, and fights down her temptations. There had been a tremor in her fingers earlier but no longer. She runs the sequence and deletes the programme.

Bucky pads around the confines of his apartment, the walls with their posters, the windowsill with its cheerful row of potted plants, the shelved rows of books and piles of vinyl-

It’s all familiar and strange at the same time, images and sensations layered over each other. His head feels hot, staticky, like he’s on the edge of a vortex where reality and unreality are so hopelessly entangled there’s no telling one from the other.

He’s felt that pull before, a dark submergence where thoughts that aren’t his fill his head and memories of things he’s done that he had no desire to do scream out in blood and pain and death. 

He curls his fingers into his palms, nails biting into flesh and vibranium plates pressed so hard together it sends an alarmed shift rippling up the length of his arm.

A stranger living in his home and his own home made strange to him. His life and not his. Again. There’s a coursing anger so fierce that he’s afraid to look at it, that this time there will be nothing left if he does, like being caught in a furnace blast.

Bucky makes another circuit of the room. 

Everything is exactly where it should be. Precisely. Sam always puts things back wherever there’s room for them, not necessarily where they should go. It drives Bucky crazy.

Crazier than his normal base level of crazy, even. Ha ha.

But everything is right, as though he’s already gone around after Sam, putting things back in their proper home and muttering darkly about it. 

The only thing is the records. He’d spent a full week listening to Oscar Peterson and Teddy Wilson, marvelling at the sheer easy mastery. The album on top  of the pile now is Bach. The Harpsichord Concertos. His mother had loved them, he remembers, the demanding precision and all the understated passion in the beauty of the notes.

Sam is asleep, barely awake when they’d stumbled into the apartment and out of it when his head had touched the pillow.

Bucky longs for sleep. And fears it. What dreams may come. His waking life has become incrementally more difficult to reconcile himself to without adding in the horrifying dreamscape his battered brain would dredge up. He can do without that, thank you very much.

He turns on the record player, turns the sound down and drops the needle. To anyone else it would be only a hiss, but Bucky’s sensitive ears pick out the familiar harmony and counterpoint. 

His mother’s hands, moving as though she were playing the notes, her eyes bright-

Bucky pushes down the pressure in the back of his throat. His head throbs, pain spilling over all of his edges.

‘You should sleep, White Wolf,’ Griot says, his voice a whisper in the dark.

‘Not much chance of that, buddy,’ Bucky tells him. His voice is thick, gravelly. The air around him feels syrupy, everything in slow motion. He can’t breathe.

‘Sergeant Barnes left a message for you,’ Griot adds after a few moments, as though he’s been considering the best next course of action.

‘Oh? What’s it say?’

‘I do not know. He asked for privacy. Do you wish me to play it?’

His life and not his, himself and not him-

He squeezes his eyes shut. 

‘Yeah, okay.’ 

Bucky places his phone and kimoyo beads on the table, puts in his ear buds.

The projection flickers to life.

‘Hey. Hi, I, uh- This is weird. I know. It feels really weird, but- I don’t know if I’ll get to say any of this to your face, so I figured this is the next best thing.’

His voice is low, like he doesn’t want to be overheard and then glances away, towards an unseen point beyond the camera’s range. He’s sitting on the couch where Bucky is now, the poster of Ella Fitzgerald that Sam had given Bucky just visible on the edge of the image.

‘Sam’s asleep. This has all been really hard on him. Harder than he lets on and I’m not sure I’m doing too good a job at helping him out there. I’m hoping you’ll do a better job looking after him when you get back.’

The blue eyes fix squarely on the camera, an intent, earnest stare and Bucky feels like a punch has landed in the centre of his body. It’s his own face and it isn’t but more than anything that look, that slight tilt of the head and the line furrowing the brow and the steady, searching regard-

It’s his father looking back at him. The resemblance that he’d always been aware of as a superficial similarity in the shape and shade of his eyes, the lines of his mouth and jaw is suddenly startling. Now it’s a tone in the voice, shared mannerisms that he hadn’t even been aware of. He’d been on the receiving end of George Barnes’ quiet, penetrating gaze that always seemed to see far too much often enough growing up not to recognise it now. 

The projection of Barnes is still talking.

‘Griot. Run- Run it back a bit, please?’ His voice comes out on a croak. The image shivers.

‘-looking after him when you get back.’ A breath pushed out and in. ‘There is a point to this, I’m not just talking to myself. Sort of. I mean, I know I got a few wires loose, but I’m not a complete yahoo.’ Barnes smiles suddenly, bright, and it’s startling how it changes his face, everything lighting up. Bucky leans forward slightly. ‘Y’know, it’s actually nice talking without having to translate half the time? Would it kill Sam to look up some proper Forties slang just once? Why do I have to be the one learning new stuff the whole time?’ 

Bucky huffs out a laugh that he tries to stifle behind his hand, the voiced complaint one that he’s run through his head many times.

Barnes’ smile dims, features rearranging into something more solemn. ‘Anyway, that’s- That’s not what I wanted to say. I’ve been living your life these last few days - longer, really, there was that week when I didn’t know I wasn’t you.’ His face contorts, wry and a hint of exasperation at the edges. ‘This will never not be weird,’ he informs Bucky, who nods as though somehow Barnes can see him. Which is- Yeah. It’s weird.

’It’s a nice life,’ Barnes says, blunt and the words come out fast. ‘It’s- You’ve got people. Neighbours, friends. Houseplants. I watered them, by the way, they’re fine. Probably wouldn’t sound like much to a lot of people, but it is. It’s a lot. Especially after- I know how … hard … it was. In the beginning.’

Hard doesn’t cover it, Bucky thinks irritably, and then catches himself. Because Barnes knows. All of it. Everything tightens behind his ribs, burns against his throat. Hard. Jesus. It had been so fucking hard…

‘Kinda felt like I was just borrowing your life. None of this is mine, not even- not even what’s in my head is mine, it’s all yours, but- Sarah, she said that everything that I did, the experiences I had since I got’ -the eyes roll- ‘made. Built. Whatever. Those are mine. Smart lady.’ Barnes’ head tilts, wry, creases deepening around his eyes. ‘She was here for a course, Sam’ll fill you in. We met up a few times…’ The wryness morphs by inches into something else. ‘Okay, full disclosure: we kissed. It was definitely more about you than it was about me and I guess I should say I’m sorry about it but I’m not.’

A defiant set of his jaw and a silvery glitter to the eyes that hints at a betraying guilt and it’s the exact same look that Bucky had seen in all three of his sisters whenever they were told they couldn’t do something and were dead set on doing it anyway. Katie had still been so young, still at the foot-stamping phase; Helen had always been stubborn and proud with it, born with determination and had never grown out of it; Becca had had no less steel running through her but with her mass of dark curls and bewitching heart-shaped face had never had any compunction about unleashing the full force of her startlingly clear blue eyes on any hapless victim. 

Don’t give me that look, Barnes Sam is forever telling him and Bucky is always, honestly, saying that he isn’t giving you a look, Samuel but damn. Maybe Sam actually has a point.

‘If you wanna be mad over it, be mad at me. But I don’t think you will.’ One corner of his mouth twitches, tenderness clear in his expression and Bucky feels an answering warmth, the bloom of affection that feels precious, something to be guarded, protected. The man rendered in the silvery blues of the holographic projection seems achingly exposed, vulnerable, beneath his layers of assumed spiky gruffness. ‘She called me Jamie.’

Bucky sucks in a breath.

‘Haven’t been called that since- God, don’t know why I keep trying to explain things that you already know. It was nice, after all this time. Sarah was right, though, there are a few things that are just mine. Nothing spectacular, really. Watched a bunch of movies.’ He scowls, or tries to, but it looks like more of a pout and maybe that’s why Sam always just laughs at him when he attempts to glare at him before his first coffee of the morning. Huh. ‘Do yourself a favour; if anyone tries to sic Johnny Mnemonic on you, don’t even hesitate: just spit in their eye. It’s terrible. Point Break was kinda fun, though,’ he adds thoughtfully, ‘you should watch that one. But that’s not the point. The point is… A lot of stuff came up these past days. I talked to Sam some - didn’t tell him anything he didn’t already know, but between that and Sarah- I started looking at this life, your life, from the outside. It’s all up here,’ he gestures vaguely towards his head and Bucky feels panic race across his skin before reminding himself, again, that of course he knows. 

‘I have all of those memories, all of it. Everything that happened. All of the things that you’ll never talk about. But it didn’t happen to me. I mean, I remember it but it wasn’t me, it wasn’t this body that it happened to. And-and I know how hard you fought. I know how much punishment you took because of that. All that fighting… It still would have been hell if you’d just given in but there would have been a little less of it if you had. But you fought. And you still fight, only it’s not you you’re fighting for, it’s every one else. And Sam- Sam’s right, you didn’t let any of it happen. You have to stop thinking that you did, you have to-have to stop blaming yourself.’ A steady gaze of almost unbearable sincerity. ‘I don’t blame you. Not for any of it. Not at all.’

The metal fist presses hard against his mouth, trying to hold in the raw, wounded noise howling in his head and pressing around his throat. The shimmering hologram of his counterpart dashes a hand across his eyes, the silvery tracks curving down his cheeks. 

‘Jeez, that all turned a lot sappier than I meant,’ Barnes complains, throaty, watery notes trembling through his voice. ‘You get to a hundred-and-eight and go all soft. That’s some racket.’ His eyes skitter away from the camera, jaw bunching while he pulls in a few deep, even breaths. 

‘I made a whole bunch of grand speeches to Sam about how I should just get switched off when all of this is over, whichever way it plays out. Got real operatic about it.’ He shakes his head. ‘God, what a schmuck. Meant every word of it when I said it, though. Thing is, now that it’s actually come to it, I don’t want to go. I guess I want a life of my own. I know it’s possible. And I know that because of you. But I also know that there’s every chance this last play will go sideways and I’m- I’m ready for that. Can’t say I’m okay with it anymore, but I’m ready. That’s part of the deal, right? So… This is where we came in, I guess. If I don’t get to say any of this to your face, I’m sorry about that. But I’m counting on you to do some fucking good living for the both of us, pal.’ Another smile breaks across his face then, something true and sweet and he looks improbably young and carefree, like a multitude of lifetimes ago. ‘Being you was pretty great, actually.’ Barnes raises his right hand, two fingers crooking in a familiar little salute. ‘Bye.’

There is silence in the small Brooklyn apartment that is broken only by the occasional faint snore coming from the bedroom and the keening noise coming from the man sitting on the couch before he breaks completely and covers his face with his hands while he sobs in a way that he hasn’t since that night up in the hills outside Birnin Zana and Ayo had told him over and over that he was free while he had wept against her shoulder. He thinks about his father and his mother and his sisters and the man wearing his face who was and was not him and who had held all of his memories and no poor bastard deserves that but they’re all tangled up in him, in his heart and soul and mind and he feels the loss again, like a hammer blow; but the edges of it are blurred this time. Something bittersweet edging the familiar pain. He had loved, once, and was loved in return. He loves still and is loved and there is still more, if he wants it. If he lets it. If he lets himself-

A full-body shudder at the enormity of it and he squeezes his eyes shut, the last hot tears tracking down his cheeks.

The apartment is silent. Sam still sleeps in the next room

‘Do you wish me to delete the recording?’ Griot’s smooth voice is soft and understanding in the dim grey gloom of the room with its books and records and plants.

Bucky pulls in a breath and then another and runs a dry tongue across chapped lips. ‘No,’ he says. ‘Can you- Can you archive it, or something? Make sure it’s safe. I don’t want to accidentally delete it.’

‘Of course,’ Griot says and there’s a note so gentle twined through those two words that Bucky feels his throat fill and his eyes sting.

The record has played itself out, just the faint hiss from the silent speakers. Bucky shuts it down.

Steely fingers of dawn light are starting to poke through the windows, the sky still pale and monochrome before the glorious golden flush of the rising sun makes the world over anew. Bucky reaches cautiously for that raging anger and finds it- Not gone, but embers rather than an incinerating heat. The ashes on his tongue taste less bitter.

Bucky dashes his hand across his eyes - Jesus, he really is getting sappy - and straightens up. Sam looks like ten different kinds of hell, everything taut and gaunt behind that smile he pastes on. The least Bucky can do is make sure there’s coffee for the man when he wakes up. He can make breakfast, God knows.

Get Sam fed, make sure he rests and not spend the day in debriefings and interviews and all the other shit they have to put up with post-mission. And then get Sam back down to Delacroix, get both of them back down there. Down to the sun and the sea and-

And Sarah.

Yes. That’s a plan. It’s a good plan, Bucky thinks. Before he starts pulling out the coffee beans and mugs he turns the record player back on and starts the Bach again.

Chapter Text

‘…scenes on Capitol Hill today with the arrest of Senator Robert Callahan. The Senator has been implicated in involvement with the series of recent terrorist attacks in Washington and New York. Senator Callahan’s office has declined to comment.’

The news anchor shakes glossy blonde hair away from her face, her expression professionally serious. ‘Meanwhile, in news from Wall Street, the SEC has announced it is launching an investigation into Midas Invest-’

The television clicks off and Bucky rouses himself, blinking over at Sam who is replacing the remote and still glaring at the television as though the current news cycle is a personal affront. The book Bucky had been reading had slipped  to the floor at some point and he wriggles around in the squashy chair to retrieve it, straightens again to find Sam studying him.

‘Nice nap?’

‘I was just resting my eyes,’ Bucky responds. Nap. Jesus. It’s only been… He squints at the room that is a lot dimmer than it had been, his nice patch of sunshine that he’d been enjoying now streaming in through a completely different window. Okay, so maybe it’s been a bit longer than, say, ten minutes. Or even thirty.

Sam’s shit-eating grin widens. ‘Restin’ your eyes for, like, two hours, old man. You want a jello cup? Need some help getting to the bathroom?’

If there’s one thing that can Bucky can rely on Sam for it’s shit-talking. 

Okay, he can rely on Sam for a lot more than that.

But the shit-talking is definitely in the top five.

Bucky, however, is going to respond to this with grace and maturity. He flips Sam off. Yup. Maturity.

Sam laughs. But there’s still concern in the lines of his eyes, an anxious cant to the angle of his eyebrows.  

And Bucky has been sleeping a lot lately. Not so much in Brooklyn, when everything had still felt too close and urgent, his nerve-endings scraped raw and an itch in his mind, as though there was somewhere else he was supposed to be. In Delacroix he’s had the same dreamless, healing sleep that he’d had in Wakanda, the same feeling of peace and home.

Oh.

Maybe this is where he was supposed to be. Maybe that’s what his stupid scrambled brain had been trying to tell him. Which is not much of a revelation, when all’s said, but Bucky would argue that when he’s had so many pieces of his jigsaw of a life to try and slot back together he’s allowed to focus on one piece at a time. Which is a metaphor that he feels pretty pleased with and is absolutely going to break it out the next time his therapist talks about progress and a holistic view of life. Ha, take that mental healthcare professional.

The furrow in Sam’s brow has deepened and he’s come to sit on the edge of the couch opposite Bucky, hands clasped together and he leans forward slightly. Is Sam okay? He still looks kind of tired-

Oh, wait. This is where Bucky is supposed to have said something.

‘I’m fine, Sam.’

And Sam’s eyebrows hit a new pitch of worry, unhappy lines around his mouth. 

Bucky scrubs at his eyes, straightens in the chair, which is not easy because it’s basically a chair-shaped marshmallow and heaped with cushions. His hand slips down the side and comes back up with a rogue piece of lego. He examines the bright yellow block for a second, places it on the coffee table.

‘Look, I know it looked like I was asleep in … there.’ The Framework. He knows that’s what it was called. Why is it so difficult to say it? ‘But I wasn’t, not really. This is- It’s normal. It’s like after I’d come out of cryostasis, I’d just need to sleep. There’s nothing to worry about.’

‘Uh-huh.’ Sam nods, thoughtful. His mouth works, like he’s rolling words around that he’s picking carefully. 

Bucky sighs and waits.

‘I didn’t get the impression that there was much time for sleeping between you coming out of cryostasis and being sent out on a mission.’

Sam’s voice is level and he’s making clear efforts to keep his face neutral. It is not entirely successful. It’s the eyes that give him away: too warm and expressive. Bucky retrieves his bit of lego, turns it over between his fingers. ‘I’d get shot up with adrenaline and a whole cocktail of stuff to keep me going.’ He glances up at Sam and down again. ‘Shoot myself up sometimes, if necessary.’

It’s one of the things he can’t really explain about being the Winter Soldier. He had been the ghost, the bogey-man, the bringer of fear. In the choking nightmares where he relives all of those deaths at his hands he is cold and calculating and yes, in reality, at the time, he had been. He had also been terrified, the world too loud, too bright, too confusing. Focus on the mission, finish it, because that meant it would all stop and even the sickening moments of sinking back into that death-like dark and cold were preferable to the constant jangling roar in his head.

Sam’s face has that tight, angered look that he gets when Bucky talks about those years. At first it was an annoyance, thinking irritably If you don’t like it, just don’t ask until the more rational part of him (and he does have one, no matter what Sam says) had reasserted itself, along with the acknowledgement that Sam was angry on his behalf.

Which is nice, if unnecessary.

The edges of the little yellow block are sharp, unyielding. Damn things are weapons themselves, Bucky thinks and he’s trodden on one before today so he knows what he’s talking about. He puts it back on the table again, shoves up from his too-comfortable chair and stretches out his shoulders.

The familiar sounds of the household brush peaceably around his ears: hot-water pipes creaking as the boiler kicks in; the boys’ cheerful voices and the propulsive sound of a video game layered beneath that, enjoying their permitted hour for the day; the radio playing in the kitchen and the rattle of pans, cupboards opening and closing. He could, if he wanted, listen out further: down the street to where Mr Liu will be tinkering with his truck engine and Leon Landry will be sitting on his porch arguing with his sister over the phone. Bucky does not, opting to confine his ridiculous super-soldier senses to this house in this moment and-

And Sarah is singing softly under her breath, joining in with the easy soul spilling through the speakers and it is absolutely Bucky’s favourite sound in the world.

He shakes out the squashed cushions and when he straightens he realises that Sam is still sitting at an awkward angle on the couch, an arrested expression on his face and a hint of tension across his shoulders.

It isn’t his pre- or post- or even during-mission edginess, but more when he has something that he wants to say and Bucky watches him carefully, trying to parse what it is that’s bothering Sam.

Or he could, y’know, just ask him.

‘What?’

Sam holds his eyes a little wider. ‘What?’

‘That is not a mature response,’ Bucky complains. ‘You clearly have something on your mind. So. Spill.’

‘I think we should have a memorial service,’ Sam says quickly and then winces slightly, as though this is not quite how he meant to say it.

Bucky, feeling still a few paces behind, frowns. ‘For who?’

And Sam stares at him as though Bucky is the one who isn’t making any sense.

‘I- For BuckyBot!’

Which is so many different sorts of wrong that Bucky isn’t sure where to begin but opts to start with the most glaring problem.

‘BuckyBot? Are you kidding me?’

Sam gets that prickly look. Like he’s got a mouthful of needles. ‘He may have gone by Barnes, but he’ll always be BuckyBot to me.’

‘Christ…’

Bucky can feel a quiet headache building behind his eyes and rubs at them. 

‘You said it yourself, he was a person,’ Sam continues, quieter. His hands are clasped loosely in his lap. ‘It feels wrong, not doing something. That’s just treating him like scrap metal.’ A sharp brightness in Sam’s eyes.

‘That’s a low blow, Sam,’ Bucky says quietly.

Sam holds up his hands. ‘Yeah. Sorry. It just- This means something to me, man. He meant something to me. He was my friend and I’m sorry he’s gone.’

They have talked about what happened during those two weeks, naturally, Sam filling him in on the steps of the investigation, all the seemingly disparate threads converging. And of course he’s talked about working with Bucky’s robot double, but they haven’t really talked about him. Sam always calls him Barnes - except for times like now and Bucky can’t tell if he’s being sincere or obnoxious or obnoxiously sincere - but Bucky’s private thoughts are coloured by all those complicated bittersweet swirls of emotion around the man with his face that Bucky thinks of as Jamie.

Bucky lets out a breath. ‘Okay. Whatever you want, Sam.’

Sam brightens almost immediately, the set of his shoulders turning loose and relaxed. It’s honestly endearing how easily pleased Sam is sometimes.

‘You wanna say a few words?’

And then he immediately goes and ruins it. Bucky stares at him coldly.

‘You want me to say a few words,’ he says slowly, ‘at what is pretty much my own funeral?’

‘It- it is not your own funeral, man, c’mon!’

Bucky puts his eyebrows up, keeps his eyes on Sam. ‘It’s creepy at best and downright macabre at worst, is what it is.’ He raises his voice a fraction. ‘What do you think, Griot?’

Sam sputters and then his eyes narrow. ‘Griot? I thought you deleted Griot after the whole Spotify incident.’

‘We came to an understanding: Griot isn’t allowed to alter any of my playlists without getting my permission first.’

‘It is a reasonable arrangement,’ the AI’s voice agrees equitably from where Bucky’s phone lies on a side-table. 

Sam puts his head in his hands for a moment.

‘I’m actually thinking of getting Shuri to put Griot on the Redwing drones,’ Bucky continues and maybe he’s enjoying this a little bit too much but if you can’t have a bit of fun at the expense of one of the people you love best in the world, well… ‘You wouldn’t mind flying would you, Griot?’

‘The idea is not objectionable,’ Griot states.

Sam groans into his hands.

‘In relation to your initial query,’ the AI continues, calmly oblivious to the habitual I love you but I will cheerfully strangle you being played out in the den of this rambling old house in Delacroix, ‘I understand your hesitation, White Wolf: it is unnerving for humans to be faced so intimately with their own mortality. Sergeant Barnes was part of you. But he had, I believe, come to recognise himself as his own person.’

He’s watched and re-watched the video message until he knows it by heart, every word and intonation and gesture. The him who isn’t him, who he feels is someone he actually likes, someone he would have liked to have known better.

Complex feelings to have about his double when his feelings about himself have been far less kind. 

Sam has emerged from behind his hands and the way he looks at Bucky now is curious, assessing and not lacking in sympathy. One more messed-up thing in their messed-up lives, he supposes.

‘We’ll do the memorial, whatever,’ Bucky says, gruff. ‘But no, I am not saying a few words.’

‘Okay,’ Sam says, placating, a softness to his smile. ‘Look, it’s not a big deal of a thing, it’s just something.’

‘Sam, I get it!’

Bucky snags his empty mug off the coffee table, heads towards the kitchen with Sam trailing behind him.

The rising warmth of heating spices fills the air, a near-visible shimmer of gold that is happiness and home. Sarah, as always, doing about ten different things at once, stirring at a pot while her phone is jammed between her ear and shoulder.

‘I’m on hold,’ she says when she sees them.

‘You can put it on speaker, y’know,’ Sam says, long-suffering, like he has a thousand times before. Sarah makes a face at him.

‘Sam wants to have a funeral for a robot,’ Bucky states, lodging his complaint, and her lovely face brightens.

He had thought that there might be an awkwardness, a distance, between them, no matter what his robot-self had said. Maybe Sarah had preferred that version of him, anyway; or maybe-

When they had arrived in Delacroix and Sarah had picked them up from the airport, she had thrown her arms around him with the same relieved urgency as she had Sam, her smile bright and sparkling and Bucky, oh thank God, she had murmured and he had let himself melt into the easy warmth of her unrestrained affection.

‘It’s not a funeral,’ Sam whines. ‘It’s a memorial.’

‘That’s a great idea,’ Sarah says, all soft at the edges.

Et tu, Sarah?

Bucky attempts to look affronted but is pretty sure that his face doesn’t co-operate and that he’s just grinning at her with a particularly sappy expression. Whatever it is, Sarah doesn’t seem to mind because her smile when she looks at him turns even sweeter and her eyes damn near glow with a tenderness so real and unwavering he can almost touch it.

‘How about Saturday?’ she continues. And slaps at Sam’s hand without turning to look as he tries to snag a snack out of her pile of ingredients.

‘Mean,’ he mutters. ‘But yeah, Saturday would be great.’

‘Great,’ Bucky confirms, glum.

He isn’t an idiot and he isn’t oblivious to the fact that there is genuine grief and affection and it needs, if not an outlet, a focus. It still just feels a little too close, too many layers of feeling and imprints of sensation, blurring out his edges and spilling over into someone else before washing back in. He feels a little dizzy with it; but it’s just him, his messed-up head and his own issues to deal with. 

Sarah swings around suddenly, talking into the phone. ‘Yes! Yes, I’m still here…’

Sam jerks his head at Bucky and so he follows Sam out onto the porch. It's a mellow tail-end to the day, freshness on the air hinting at coming rain and the soothing sounds of soughing trees, birdsong, lapping water and the low thrum of the final boats out in the bay.

‘There’s something else I want to talk to you about.’

Bucky eyes Sam and his earnest expression with apprehension. ‘Oh God, you don’t want us to get matching tattoos or something, do you?’

It’s greeted with the appropriate amount of insulted bafflement. ‘That’s- What? No! Why would that even be a thing?’

Bucky shrugs easily. ‘I don’t know, it just seems like the sort of thing you’d suggest lately. I turn my back for two weeks and you get exponentially more sappy.’

Sam’s eyes pop wide and there’s a bright bubble of laughter behind his words. ‘Oh-ho! Turn your back, huh? That’s how we’re playing this? That’s how you rewriting history?’

‘Not so much rewriting as slightly reframing.’ Bucky tilts his head and grins at Sam speculatively. ‘I notice you didn’t deny the sappy part.’

Sam tilts his head back and the earnestness has returned to his face, sorrow shadowing his eyes. ‘Maybe that has something to do with seeing a version of my best friend blow himself up.’

Bucky feels the words like a stone, cold and heavy in the pit of his stomach. ‘Yeah. That was rough.’ Bucky picks idly at a splinter; he really has to sand and reseal the wood before the summer humidity picks up. ‘But I don’t know that there was much of a choice, under the circumstances.’

And, oh, okay, that was the wrong thing to say given the flare of anger that tightens Sam’s mouth and causes a tick along his jaw. 

‘Maybe there would have been if he hadn’t gone behind our backs and made a decision without telling anyone.’ There’s a raw hurt in Sam’s voice.

‘Okay, Sam, that’s not quite how-’

‘I need you to promise me.’ Sam barrels over the words, earnest and urgent. ‘And a promise that you Goddamn keep!’

Bucky sighs. ‘What is it?’

They stare at each other.

‘Sam, I’m not making a promise without knowing what it is; that’s just stupid.’

Sam’s nostrils flare and he’s very still and there’s an intent look in his eyes that’s part angry and part scared. ‘Fine,’ he grits out. ‘You don’t get to do it. You don’t get to make the suicide play and be all it’s the only way and pull some dumb shit move. No. No way.’

Bucky snorts and glares right back. ‘Oh, so I just stand back so that you can do it instead?’

‘We have a discussion about it. We make a decision as a team, man.’

Honestly, anyone would think that Bucky was standing there with a brick of C-4 strapped to his chest or something. 

‘Well, rather than us playing rock, paper, scissors on who gets to get blown up first, how about we opt for the third way where no-one has to die?’ He considers the work they do and adds a quick caveat. ‘Not on purpose anyway.’

‘Oh, you can guarantee that, huh?’

Bucky shrugs lightly. ‘Can’t guarantee anything. You know that. But I asked Shuri to make us universal remote detonators, as it were. Something that won’t be affected by jamming signals.’

Sam’s mouth open and closes a couple of times. ‘Wha…’

‘She’s testing them out in her lab. If they can work through all of her configurations plus a whole damn mountain of vibranium, they’ll work through anything. It’s a prototype but she’s pretty confident and you know Shuri - she’ll be upgrading them forever.’

Bucky waits. Sam does a very deliberate sort of breathing.

‘You could have led with that.’

‘In my defence, I didn’t know you were gonna lay that whole speech on me. So. Didn’t really get the chance.’

Sam’s face creases. ‘Shit.’ His elbows rest on the smooth wooden rail, thumbs digging into the hollows of his eyes. 

Bucky watches him, chewing on the inside of his lip. They’ve had close calls before, faced some pretty terrible situations, both taken hits that have looked like the last one they’ll ever take. But this time feels different. There’s a weight in Sam’s limbs that doesn’t seem to have lifted, lines in his face that don’t smooth away.

‘Sam,’ he says, gently, ‘are you okay?’

Sam rubs at his face, straightens up.

‘Yeah, of course.’

He could leave it. Except he can’t.

‘You can talk to me, you know. I’m not so fragile that you can’t tell me if something’s bothering you.’

It’s a weird snorting sound, the one that forces down Sam’s nose and his brown eyes are incredulous. ‘I have never once thought of you as fragile.’

‘I don’t mean physically,’ Bucky says, irritably.

Sam stares at him. ‘Neither do I.’

Which-

Oh.

‘Goddamn…’ Sam shakes his head. ‘You are literally the strongest person I  have ever known. But Jesus, Buck, you have been through enough without carrying my shit, too. I know being in that virtual reality set-up… That was no joke.’

Bucky feels his stomach give a painful lurch. He’d like to say that that other life has faded like a dream that dissipates on waking but it’s there, lurking at the edges of his vision as though, if he turned fast enough, he could catch hold of it again. He tries for a smile and feels it come out harsh and tight. ‘My pathetic wishful thinking.’

Which seems another wrong thing to say. Sam goes all still and sorrowful again, looking at Bucky for an uncomfortably long time until Bucky starts to fidget.

‘It was’t pathetic,’ Sam says and a wistful note twists through his words. ‘It- It was beautiful. You tried real hard to give everyone a happy ending. Hell, I felt like staying in there myself. See Nat again.’ 

The voids in Sam’s life, the ones he doesn’t talk about. The pain hidden behind his brightest smiles and easy charm. For all Sam is friendly and easy-going, he doesn’t let people in all that much. He needs some prodding sometimes and for all Bucky is unpracticed and just downright terrible at this, he’s going to be the one doing the prodding.

‘I know you miss her. And Steve. I- I miss him, too,’ Bucky says, feeling a little desperate and what the fuck am I supposed to say?

Sam’s face creases into aching fondness. ‘I know you do. And I’m sorry.’

Bucky blinks, confused. ‘Why?’

‘Because you miss him.’

‘Oh.’

Thing is, he’d missed Steve long before Steve ever left. Bucky thinks he started missing Steve as soon as that dumb lug had stepped into Howard Stark’s magic box. Steve had always thought, or at least seemed to think, that it had allowed him to be the person he was always supposed to be. Bucky had always felt as though Steve had, somehow, lost as much as he had gained. Bucky finds another splinter, peels it off the wood.

‘Thought I’d find you back in the day, you know? In, like, old school Brooklyn.’

‘Oh.’ Bucky watches a small flock of birds flap their way across the soft evening  sky, one bringing up the rear a little behind all the others. There’s always that one…

There’s a question in Sam’s voice, a gentle one that Bucky knows he can ignore. He pulls in a breath.

‘I miss my sisters. I- I’ll always miss them. But they had good lives and they- They would have mourned me but they were okay, all of them. They had each other and a whole network of cousins and friends.’ He pauses. ‘We were Catholic, there were endless of us.’

Sam’s eyes crinkle with an amusement that only runs skin deep. Bucky sighs.

‘I- I don’t know how to explain it. I was back there, back in the war but-’ He passes a hand over his face. ‘I lost a lot. But… There’s a life. Here. And Steve… Maybe he couldn’t see it, I guess. I dunno, maybe I thought if he had something to hold onto, something…someone…untainted, he would- He would find a reason to stay.’

He glances at Sam and there’s something too complicated and too painful in the other man’s face. Something that looks like anger and it echoes a look in a military hangar and a police station in Baltimore and a far more complicated expression in the backyard of this very house, on the rolling stretch of velvety grass leading down to the water.

Bucky stares ahead helplessly.

‘And Natasha…’ Bright blonde hair under an endless African sky. Her head resting on his shoulder, warmed by the flames of the watch fire in the cold dark hours of early morning. In another life, she had said and he had not asked what she meant. He hadn’t needed to. ‘She suffered so much. I- She deserved better.’

Sam lets out a long breath, stares out across the soft roll of green grass, the sweep of old oaks and the powder blue sky lowering over the face of the water beyond.

‘Kinda like the idea of them being on some kind of road trip together, though. That feels right,’ Sam says.

It does, somehow. 

Sam angles himself towards Bucky again. ‘Also, biggest chest of drawers in the world?’

Bucky holds up his hands. ‘Okay, I looked that up and it turns out that it is actually a thing and I have no idea how I knew that.’

‘Does actually sound like the sort of dumb shit Nat would’ve loved,’ Sam says with an indulgent, affectionate smile.

‘Maybe she told me about it. She used to tell me stories in Wakanda.’

Sam’s eyebrows hit an alarming angle. ‘Oh, did she? Didn’t know you two spent that much time together there.’

‘We didn’t, not really.’

‘Hold on, when Nat said she was staying on there longer to train with the Dora Milaje-’

And Sam really doesn’t need to put the verbal inverted commas around that.

‘-she was actually spending time with you?’

‘She did train with the Dora,’ Bucky protests. ‘And when she wasn’t, yeah, she’d come and see me sometimes.’

There’s a complicated something working its way across Sam’s face. Bucky huffs out a breath that is more than a little amused.

‘It wasn’t like that. We… We didn’t need to explain things to each other, we could just… Be. It was nice. She was a good person.’

‘Yeah. Yeah, she was.’ 

There had been a capacity for joy in Natasha. She’d been cynical, of course, and guarded. But despite it, or maybe because of it, she had seemed determined to take back any pieces of beauty and fun and love that she could. Her triumph over the darkness. And in the face of her fearlessness Bucky had felt an answering spark of maybe, maybe, maybe…

‘Those weeks…’ Sam starts. Stops. His head drops for a moment, shoulders hunching before he lifts his head again. ‘Two weeks doesn’t sound like a long time, but it felt like fucking forever. And, damn, it wasn’t even two weeks because I didn’t even know anything was wrong for the first week.’

‘I guess that was kind of the point,’ Bucky says, trying to keep his voice level because there’s a waver in Sam’s and even in profile Bucky can see the harsh over-brightness of his eyes.

‘I should have known! You’re my partner, my best friend and- And how could I not have known? But you were just gone and there was-there was nothing. No idea what was happening to you and everyone kept going to the worst case scenario, even me. And Barnes- He said if you were the Winter Soldier again, you’d sooner be dead.’

Cold crawling across his skin, static on the edges of his mind. ‘He was right.’ His voice sounds hoarse, strained.

Sam nods. ‘I know. And I hated him for saying it and I hated him for being right. And I told everyone it didn’t matter anyhow, that I’d get you back to being you no matter what had happened. And I knew how mad you’d be at me if you knew.’

‘Sam-’

‘And I didn’t know if we would get you back! Like, would there be anything left of you when we did find you, or-or would they just cut their losses and kill you; and every time Rhodey called part of me thought this is it, this is when he tells me they’ve found your body.’

‘Sam,’ Bucky tries again, because this distress is too much, Sam’s pain and anger and grief all turned inwards and it hurts. Bucky gets a hand at the back of Sam’s neck, fingers pressing around the delicate bones and pulls Sam towards him. An awkward half-hug because Sam grips Bucky’s arm and holds them apart, keeping a little distance while the words spill out.

‘And Barnes kept trying to get someone to switch him off because he was so scared of hurting someone and it was you, it was exactly what you’d say and do and it was driving me crazy, but-’ Sam pulls in a breath. ‘But him being there, it- He got me through it. Kept me sane. And he looked after me, you know? He nagged and lectured because he was a pain in the ass and he fed me and made me rest when I needed it.’ He swipes at his eyes with his free hand. ‘He said you’d know I’d be looking for you and I was but, Jesus, Buck, if it hadn’t been for Barnes you’d probably still be stuck in that computer programme getting you brain fried again. Some fucking partner I am, huh?’

Bucky tugs at Sam and there’s no resistance now. Sam’s forehead dips down, resting on Bucky’s shoulder and he keeps his hands steady and firm against Sam’s back. 

‘You kept looking, Sam. You found me. That’s all that matters.’

Sam isn’t shaking exactly, it isn’t violent enough for that, but tremors shudder through him. Physical affection had come easily to Bucky once: throwing an arm around someone’s shoulders, reeling them in for a hug, Steve, his sisters, the Howlies. A short-cut to making someone feel a bit better, to soothe the hurt. But this is hurt beyond all and any of that and Sam has been through so much on Bucky’s behalf, is haunted and scarred by it and he deserves so much more than Bucky’s lame attempts at trying to be a normal functioning human being. Bucky tightens his hold slightly, feeling desperately inadequate because this isn’t, can’t be, enough.

But Sam does actually seem to relax, the tense lines loosening in Bucky’s determined embrace.

‘So, this is what we do now, huh?’ Sam says, a little muffled. It sounds like there’s a smile in his voice.

‘Looks like,’ Bucky confirms.

He peels his arms from Sam cautiously, peers into his face and, okay. Sam is watery and a little fuzzy at the edges, maybe, but he looks more like Sam and less like he’s a stretched-out nerve about to snap.

‘Didn’t mean to lay all that on you, man.’

Bucky shrugs and tries to make it look casual. It probably doesn’t work, given how the motion brings an increased indulgent softness into Sam’s face. They both go back to leaning against the railing, watching the slow dip of the sun towards evening.

‘Sounds like Barnes was a pretty good guy,’ Bucky says after a while.

Sam bumps against his shoulder. 

‘Yeah. He’s the best.’

Saturday comes around and aliens haven’t invaded, the sky hasn’t fallen in and the world hasn’t blown up. So, they’re doing this.

Sam had put forward the idea of floating lanterns, which had been met by enthusiasm from Sarah and Cass and AJ until Bucky had shoved his tablet under Sam’s nose to show him a horror-show of a news story where such lanterns had landed in a zoo after hours, when the keepers weren’t there, with appalling consequences.

Sam had looked queasy. ‘Yeah, okay, no lanterns.’

A final decision is made on floating tea-lights set onto the water and Bucky might have some questions about Sam’s apparent obsession with having things going up in flames in order to address/assuage his grief/guilt which in itself has Bucky still worried; but Sarah is wholeheartedly supportive which must mean that it’s not as strange as Bucky thinks it is and the boys are, initially, intrigued by the goings-on and have their own opinions on what they seem to think is some sort of elaborate crafting exercise that the adults in their lives have become very invested in.

There are numerous text chains on Bucky’s phone between various permutations of Cass and AJ and his robot-sel- And Jamie. As much sincere and careful love in Jamie’s responses as there would have been in Bucky’s own. The boys have no idea about what has happened and, God, Bucky is glad of that. That they have been spared this confusion and grief.

Both of the boys become bored with the ongoing conversations and so by the Saturday when the sun sits low on the horizon, streaking the sky and water with shades of brilliant copper and deep pinks against a high haze of blue, they take themselves along a little ways so Cass can oversee with some indulgence his little brother settling in to catch lightning bugs because Cass is too grown and sophisticated for such childish excitements.

(Bucky had nodded with wise understanding when Cass had told him this, all big solemn eyes behind his glasses, but he had seemed almost gratified to hear that while Bucky fully understood and respected Cass’ status as too grown, Bucky himself still finds lightning bugs magical and catching them a worthwhile pursuit.)

And so, early on this Saturday evening, Bucky and Sam and Sarah stand at the edge of the dock stretching out into the bay at the back of Sarah’s house.

If nothing else, Sarah has taken it as an opportunity to dress up a little, the amber shade of her tea-dress (Bucky is fairly confident that’s what that style is called, he had three sisters and about a thousand cousins, after all) making her skin glow. She’s filled the low neckline with numerous fine gold chains that catch in the lazy sunshine and reflect sparkles in her deep dark eyes.

Sam stands between them and he studies the flare of light blinding off the edge of wavelets around the dock’s wooden struts. He takes a breath, straightens his spine.

‘BuckyBot Barnes-’

‘Oh my God…’

Sam aims a glare at the side of Bucky’s tilted-back head.

‘BuckyBot Barnes,’ he repeats firmly, ‘was the best fake robot best friend a guy could have.’

And it would be so easy to think that Sam is just fucking with him now except that he knows that Sam means every word.

‘It was a really difficult time,’ Sam continues. ‘I was scared and I was angry and he made it easier, just by being there. And he was scared, too. But he still cared more about other people than he did about himself and in the end… In the end he saved a lot of people. Thousands of people, maybe millions. People who’ll never know that their lives were in danger to begin with; and he didn’t do it because he saw himself as a hero but because he wanted to protect people and for him it was the right thing to do. And none of that it is a surprise considering who he was modelled on.’

Oh, you utter bastard, Bucky thinks helplessly and there’s a thickness in his throat, a pressure behind his eyes that he blinks against.

And Sam’s eyes are huge and shadowed and glassy and all the horrors of the past weeks written into his face, still, but he’s still there, still standing, as stupidly bright and hopeful as the shining star at the centre of that Goddamn shield.

‘I’m really glad he was there for you, Sam,’ Bucky says and he means it, because Sam cares about so fucking much all the fucking time and he really could do with a break. He leans forward slightly, looking past Sam. Sarah is nodding, one hand resting lightly on her chest and there’s something unbearably tender and wistful in her face. ‘I have mixed feelings about his being there for you, Sarah.’ 

Which he feels obliged to say, and which is an utter lie.

Her smile then is as bright as one of AJ’s lightning bugs. 

‘He was a perfect gentleman,’ she says cheerfully. ‘Which is also not a surprise.’

Which is good to know. Although, one of those more or less situations which probably errs on the less side than the more, Bucky suspects. But still. Not like he can blame the guy. It’s Sarah, after all.

Sam and Sarah place their lit candles in their holders on the water, the flames reflecting in the deepening blue. They all stand for a while, watching the tiny bobbing flames ride the waves that, however gentle, seem in danger of subsuming them. They ride on regardless, triumphant, gleaming against the gathering dark.

It’s an unspoken agreement, somehow, that Bucky remains alone on the little jetty for a while. He still has no words to say but that, he knows, doesn’t matter. Barnes, Jamie, whoever and whatever he had been, he had wanted Bucky to live a life, a full one. For both of them.

Bucky lights the candle in its holder, sets it down on the water and watches as it’s carried on the current out towards the breakwater.

Once he had thought maybe and once that had seemed like enough: even just to think it, when a viable future had seemed impossible, when relearning how to be happy, even in snatches, seemed to be permanently out of his grasp. Now he thinks I will, I will, I will.

The sky is soft and deep behind the trees, the roll of grass a dark velvet, but it’s still light enough for Sam to throw a football around for the boys and Sarah to watch them all from the porch steps. Her chin resting in her hand, she looks utterly content, as though her world is complete and she is confident of her place within it.

Maybe, though, Bucky thinks. And, I will.

He hovers behind her awkwardly and then takes the three steps forward that means he can drop down to sit beside her.

Sarah leans back a little, twisting slightly to face him and her cheeks round in a smile. ‘Hey,’ she says.

‘Hi.’

Off to an eloquent start then, he thinks drily. Bucky rests his elbows on his knees. ‘So. You and Jamie.’ He says it lightly.

Sarah lets out a little breath, her head ducking for a moment before she looks up again, something a little shadowed and anxious behind her eyes. They’re so close together that their shoulders touch. Sarah clasps her hands together lightly in her lap and Bucky can’t stop himself: he takes her left hand, holding it carefully between both of his.

Sarah starts to say something and then another question chases it away. ‘Did your mom call you Jamie, or something like that?’

He smiles slightly. Her hand feels small between his, supple and strong. ‘Nah, my mom gave in on the Bucky thing pretty quick. She knew how to pick her battles. Jamie… Jamie was what my dad called me.’

A thoughtful man, quiet, a way of looking at people that could strip them down to the bone. But also endlessly patient and kind, a dry humour that was often overlooked but that Bucky had always enjoyed once he was old enough to understand it.

‘It’s a nice name,’ Sarah says, and that hint of gentle sadness edges her tone again. ‘It suited him. It suits you, too.’

Bucky smiles slightly. ‘I think I’ll stick with Bucky. Jamie can be his.’

Sarah presses her lips together, a sheen across her eyes that she blinks away. ‘When Sam told me what had happened I thought he was joking at first.’ She’s trying to keep her voice steady, he can tell. It’s a little too careful, the way she spaces the words.

‘That would be a really terrible joke,’ Bucky says and she nods.

‘I know. But the alternative meant that it was real, and-’ Sarah shakes her head slightly, pragmatic in that way she has that never covers up how much she cares. ‘But it was real. And then I met him. Jamie. And he was so sweet and so sad and I… I felt about him the way I feel about you and…’ Her chin lifts, not challenging, exactly, it’s more-

Oh, shit, she’s actually worried about this.

‘I kissed him. We kissed. And I know that might seem strange to you or-’

‘Sarah.’ His thumb rubs gently across the smooth back of her hand. ‘I know. He told me. Well, he left a message for me, anyway. We, uh…’ He feels an odd little jolt of grief. ‘Everything happened so fast at the end, I never got the chance to really talk to him. I wish I had. He- I’ve been surviving for a long time, but that- That isn’t the same as living. I knew that already, of course I did. But, he- Jamie. He really made me see it, made me want to do something about it.’

Sarah nods, her eyes wide and dark and fixed on him. Bucky raises one hand, rests it against her cheek and her breath catches slightly, releases.

‘I guess I’m actually just happy that he had someone who cared that much about him.’

‘Loved,’ Sarah says, intent, and she leans into his hand, her eyes fluttering closed before she looks at him again. The warmth of her skin seeps into Bucky’s fingers and he wants with a sweet, delicate ache.

‘Loved,’ he says, soft. ‘I think he deserved that.’

Her hand comes up to curl around his wrist, the work-worn callouses on her palm catching against his skin. ‘You do see what that means, right?’

Something so impossible despite all of those haunting maybes. 

‘Yes,’ he says, managing to get it out somehow because God, it is still so fucking hard to acknowledge it to himself, let along say it out loud.

‘It was a pretty chaste kiss in the scheme of things,’ Sarah says and she sounds slightly distracted. She’s looking at him in a very particular way and he can feel it all the way down to his toes.

A chaste kiss… Bucky thinks about this, his eyes narrowing slightly.

‘What?’

‘Nothing,’ Bucky says slowly. ‘It’s just… I mean, I know how much I want to kiss you and…’ His face screws up with the next slightly bashful admission: ‘And I know what I’m like.’

Sarah is still for a moment and then laughs, her head coming to rest on his shoulder. She releases his wrist, her arm sliding lose around him. Bucky’s own hand slides, inevitably, from her cheek, along the gorgeous curve of her neck, rests against her back and without him having anything to say in the matter his fingers take the opportunity to traces the lines of her shoulders. Her soft laughter brushes against his ears, breath warm on his skin. He nuzzles into her hair piled on top of her head, inhales the scent of coconut and marula.

‘Sarah…’

She leans against him, the weight of her body warm and solid and that delicate ache deepens into a giddy sort of desire.

‘Did Sam tell you where I was when he found me? Not in the lab thing, I mean in the-in the Framework thing?’

Sarah shakes her head and straightens so that she can look into his face. ‘No. Why?’

‘I was…’ He stares at where her fingers are still laced through his, the black and gold glinting against her dark skin. ‘I was living in Delacroix. And I was married to you.’

She blinks. ‘Oh.’ And she nods. ‘Well, marriage is a pretty big step,’ Sarah says, thoughtful. ‘We should probably go on a few dates first.’

Bucky knows he’s grinning like an idiot. He knows it. He does’t really care. ‘You’d be interested in that?’

Sarah looks at him as though she is undergoing a swift reassessment of both his intelligence and his sanity which is fair, he has those questions about himself on a regular basis. But he doesn’t want to assume and, dammit, he does want to hear her say it.

Her appraising look turns ruminative, a sparkly bright mischief hinting at the edges. ‘I was ready to do a lot more than just kiss,’ Sarah tells him. ‘Jamie said it wouldn’t be fair to any of us. So, you have him to … thank? for that. I guess?’

Bucky thinks about her words and then takes another look at them.

‘He turned you down?’ Saying it out loud doesn’t help. ‘Jeez, what an idiot.’

Sarah laughs again, a sound like sunshine. ‘So you’d have no scruples there, huh?’

‘None,’ he says firmly and he is not blushing. He isn’t.

Sarah’s gaze turns amused and sceptical and Bucky puts his eyebrows up at her. ‘What, you don’t believe me?’

‘About as much as you believe me about the chaste kiss,’ she says and there is very definitely a challenge there now.

He studies the soft curve of her lips, the sheen on them and the way that they part slightly. He can hear the uptick in her heartbeat.

‘I guess it depends on your definition of chaste,’ Bucky says and maybe once he could have put that across with some measure of smoothness and it would have come out playful and charming and maybe a little suave. Or maybe not. Maybe that’s just yet more wishful thinking and maybe it was all too long ago and he was too young to really know himself. Maybe back then it would have come out with this same almost painful, bashful earnestness.

However it sounds to Sarah, her pupils blow wide and she seems a little breathless and they haven’t even done anything yet. ‘I guess it does,’ she murmurs and her tongue darts out, a hint of pink against her lips and he almost groans with the sudden, breathtaking, fizzing need for her.

Bucky takes her face carefully between his hands, his thumbs gentle against her cheeks and he leans towards her slowly, giving her time to really think about this, to change her mind if she wants to, to go.

She doesn’t.

It’s a simple warm press of lips, achingly sweet. The plush fullness of her lower lip between his, pliant and promising, enough to taste the traces of sweet tea and sea salt. Sarah’s hand at the back of his neck, her strong fingers curling into his hair and he feels the long exhale of her breath against his cheek.

Bucky pulls back and Sarah follow the motion, staring at him with the same sort of starburst adoration that he feels, that he’s certain is reflected back at her and the spinning enormity of the world is nothing except this: the sparking brightness in her eyes, the warmth of her touch where her fingers still sit against his skin, and the steady undertow of love pulling him deeper into waters, joyous and life-giving, that he’s all too happy to surrender to.

If that first kiss was a silent promise, the second kiss delivers on it. Bucky angles Sarah’s chin and he parts her lips under his; she moans softly into his mouth when her tongue slides against his and her arms tighten around him, the soft swell of her breasts pressing against his chest. Bucky can’t get drunk, not off alcohol, anyway, but he’s pretty sure he can get damn near high on the taste of Sarah’s mouth, the exquisite welcoming warmth of her lips and tongue, the sound of her sighs. The reality of her in his arms, the heady haze of want and need, the feel of loving and being loved, it all layers over those phantom impressions, driving away the ghosts of an imagined life until his whole body sings with the pulsing knowledge of their touch and their desire and their love.

Their foreheads rest together, shaky breaths while the world stops its vertiginous spinning, settling back into a contented hum.

‘James,’ Sarah murmurs and she kisses him again, tender, maybe just because she can.

Bucky grins back at her, impossible happiness filling him up, leaving no room for anything else.

Evening has settled in, shadows lengthening and the glinting lights twined through the trees have come on, glowing against the soughing leaves.

And someone, Bucky realises, is yelling at them. Or something like that.

Bucky raises his head and Sarah blinks, a little startled, and they both stare across the sweep of lawn to where Sam stands flanked by the boys.

‘There’s kids here!’ Sam calls over. ‘They don’t need to be seeing none of that!’ He has his hands clamped over Cass’ and AJ’s eyes and both boys are giggling and writhing against his grasp, pulling at his hands, and Sam’s indignation might be easier to believe if his lips weren’t twitching into a wide gap-toothed grin.

‘Guess we should go,’ Sarah says and she looks all lit-up from the inside and for a moment all that Bucky can do is stare at her, marvelling at the fact that her luminous joy is for him, is because of him, that after so much darkness there is this radiant light and it’s his.

‘Guess we should,’ he agrees when he remembers that he is supposed to say actual words.

They stand up, Bucky’s body feeling ridiculously light, the only thing holding him to the earth the warm reality of Sarah’s hand sliding into his. He raises her hand to his lips, kisses the peaks of her knuckles and then hand-in-hand they walk down the porch steps and across the lawn.

The tray of debris, all charred bits of metal and twisted wires, gets stacked next to all of the others. It’s a laborious process and probably a pointless one: the explosives and ensuing fire had gutted the base, leaving nothing in its furious wake.

A cleansing fire, perhaps, erasing all of the unnecessary misery and potential horror that had been embedded there. 

Kate Gupta had been determined to do anything and everything that was asked of her, to help make some sort of amends after her monumental, wilful stupidity. And if passing her time in a state facility and sorting through the remnants of the SHIELD base is what is wanted, then she’ll do it.

It is boring, though. It had been months before they had even released the materials and Kate had been glad of something more vital to do than working in the prison library and occasionally giving classes on computer programming. But after a month and change of sifting through bits of metal and wire and sometimes chunks of plastic and polymer that had all melted together around the aforementioned metal and wire…

But it is the very least she can do.

And yes, okay, co-operating as much as she can does mean that her sentence will be reduced. Not that it’s a particularly harsh sentence, considering everything that happened. Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes had both made statements on her behalf, which is far more than either of them needed to do -  Sergeant Barnes especially, her monumental betrayal of his trust and all of the justifiable anger that had been banked down behind his eyes - and at the time she had cried about it, fully ready to refuse to let them do it.

But she had, in the end. Of course.

Kate finishes with her current tray, makes her notes on the official forms, takes a few moments to close her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose.

She isn’t an idiot. She acted like one, true, but despite that she is not, in fact, stupid. It isn’t clear exactly which agency or government committee or whatever is behind the request that she do all of this but one of them is. And they want something. There’s something they’re hoping to find somewhere in these unending piles of ruin and ash.

‘You okay, Doc?’ 

Kate blinks her eyes open. The guard looks down at her with a wry, sympathetic smile. They’re all pretty nice to her and they don’t really do much in the way of guarding. It’s an open prison, anyway, so it’s not like they’re guarding max security prisoners or anything like that at the best of times. The tabletop is littered with notepads, pens, books, all the stuff she carries with her in and out everyday and as long as she hands over the official daily logs and checklists, no-one really seems to care what she does. As far as the guards are concerned, she’s just a geeky scientist, not like she’s a threat, not like she’s plotting to take over the world-

What are we going to do tonight, Kate?

Same thing we do every night, Cal!

She swallows against the sudden tightness in her throat and manages an answering smile for the guard. ‘Yes, just taking a minute.’

‘You’d think they’d just recycle all of this stuff,’ he says, tilting his head at the neat line of stacked trays and she nods. 

‘We’ll be winding up in, like, ten minutes. It’s taco night,’ he adds happily, ‘don’t wanna miss that!’

‘Sure. Thanks.’ She gives him a friendly smile. And he’s right, the Thursday-night tacos are always pretty good. 

He eases away, strikes up conversation with the other guard and Kate pulls the next tray closer along the table.

Larger pieces in this one, curves of titanium that still shine under the layer of grime and soot. Kate stares at the casing, sleek and smooth, fitting into her hand and completely intact. Of course, she should have known it would be. Cal’s work had always been impeccable. She remembers when he had shown it to her, the first time she had held this piece, the gleaming metal reflecting the lab lights. It was supposed to fit alongside other pieces, building what would be the skull, but this was the housing for-

Kate turns it over, pushes against the plating and it gives under the pressure;  one small scorched plate slides back smoothly. Sitting in a nest of wiring is a microchip, minute, like a grain of rice. Thoughts, memories, everything that makes up a person, an entire synthetic brain captured in this tiny, perfect thing.

She stares at it, all the possible outcomes, the consequences, if she tells them, if she doesn’t, playing out as though she’s suddenly gone psychic and with it is the absolute conviction, blindingly clear, that it’s this. This is what they want to find.

Her hands move, steady and fast. Kate snags one of the pens, pops off the cap, slips the chip into the cap and replaces it. She slides the pen into the spiral binding of her notebook.

And she continues sifting through the remnants until the guards call time.