Chapter Text
"To Be Alive"
by Gregory OrrTo be alive: not just the carcass
but the spark.
That’s crudely put, but…
If we’re not supposed to dance,
why all this music?
A packed club dance floor in Prague isn’t the last place Sam ever expected to find the Winter Soldier, formerly Bucky Barnes, but it’s sure as hell pretty far down the list of possibilities. And yet, here Sam is, following the Winter Soldier into the club.
Finding him here in Prague at all had been a stroke of dumb luck and Sam’s gut instinct: one brief news story about a big fire in an empty office building on the outskirts of Prague, and Sam had hauled ass across Europe, mostly certain that the Soldier—Barnes—whoever he was now—would be long gone by the time Sam got there. But when Sam had gone to check out the site of the fire, he’d poked around long enough to be sure it had in fact been a HYDRA base, and then he’d figured he probably ought to stick around for a few days, keeping an eye on the place in case any HYDRA operatives returned to scavenge anything.
It seemed Barnes had the same idea, because Sam had spotted him prowling around, and when he’d left, Sam had followed him.
Sam had followed him here, to a nightclub. Or maybe more of a rave. The four to the floor beat is relentless and the place is heaving with bodies, all moving in time to the music, lit up in the dark by sweeps of strobe lights. It’s a damn good place to lose a tail, especially if your pursuer is a regular-ass human without super senses. It’s all Sam can do to keep Barnes in sight; with his metal arm covered up, he’s just one more dark-haired white guy in dark clothes among dozens if not hundreds, and this place isn’t exactly well-lit. Only his height and the breadth of his shoulders are helping Sam stay on his tail.
Not that Sam knows what the hell he’s going to do when he catches up to the guy. He’d followed on instinct, concerned about Barnes going on a rampage in a crowded club. Even if all he does is get in a fight or shoot one person, in a packed place like this, crowd crush as people try to escape could kill dozens if not hundreds.
Sam can admit that Barnes going on a rampage is unlikely though; in the year since Steve and Sam have been chasing him, Barnes hasn’t hurt anyone who’s not a HYDRA agent. He hasn’t even gone on some revenge murder spree against HYDRA; the few HYDRA agents that have been killed seem to have been killed in self-defense, and apart from strategically destroying certain HYDRA bases, Barnes has stayed off everyone’s radar: theirs, intelligence agencies’, and HYDRA’s. Barnes’ apparent disinclination towards violence is the only reason Steve and Natasha are okay with Sam continuing the search on his own while they’re busy with Avengers business.
Even though Sam doesn’t trust that Barnes is nearly as non-violent as his time on the run suggests thus far, Sam hopes like hell Barnes stays disinclined towards violence. He hopes Barnes is only in this club to try to shake Sam’s tail.
Barnes moves deeper into the club, and instead of heading for the bar or the exits or the bathrooms, he goes for the dance floor. At first, Sam expects this to be just another attempt to shake him. He expects to see Barnes move through the swaying and gyrating bodies like a shark through a school of fish, a predator cleaving a path towards whatever is his prey here. Instead, Barnes lets himself be swallowed up by the crowd; he moves with it, rather than against it. Even as Sam struggles to keep him in sight, he admires the tradecraft of it, preemptively resigned to losing him in the crowd.
Maybe Sam should just pick an exit to cover and see if he can catch Barnes leaving—
Except Barnes hasn’t left. He hasn’t disappeared from the dance floor, he’s still on it, and he’s dancing. This kind of EDM hadn’t even been invented in Barnes’ day, and yet he’s moving to it as if he’s been going to raves for years. Sam himself is dancing more awkwardly than his pride prefers; this kind of club really isn’t his scene, and he’s not feeling the music. Then again, Sam hasn’t felt the music in any kind of club in a good long while. But as the music rises to some kind of crescendo or release, it’s clear the dancers can feel it, their anticipation palpable, something primal and undeniable in the rhythm. Sam finds he’s not entirely immune either. It’s still not hitting him the way it used to back in the day, but an echo of that feeling flutters in his chest.
When the drop comes, it’s like the cresting of a wave, and Sam just tries to keep from being pulled under the current. Barnes though—to Sam’s surprise, Barnes is riding the wave of music and bodies, dancing along with everyone else: his head tipped back, eyes closed, seemingly just as lost in the music as the dancers around him.
What the fuck.
Sam’s so shocked that he stops his half-hearted attempt at dancing, and only starts up again when he becomes a too-noticeable island of stillness amid all the rhythmic movement.
Maybe Barnes is trying to blend in? Maybe he thinks his tail will assume that obviously the Winter Soldier would never be dancing his ass off to techno or whatever, so this can’t be the Winter Soldier. And honestly, Sam’s starting to doubt himself, so maybe this is a good strategy.
After a couple more songs, Barnes begins to move towards the edge of the dance floor, and he doesn’t seem to be making an effort to lose Sam. Sam follows Barnes to the edge of the club, then to the hallway that leads to the bathrooms and then to the exit, and by now Barnes has to know Sam is following him, but he doesn’t look back, just goes through the exit at the end of the hall.
The blast of cold night air hits like a slap, and Sam shivers as the sweat clinging to his skin immediately cools. The music’s bass, still audible from outside, thumps dully in the air like the pulse of distant machinery. He braces himself, gets ready to pull out his knife as Barnes turns to him, but Barnes raises his empty hands, his expression calm.
Apart from the gloved left hand, he looks like any of the guys still in the club. He’s wearing a skin-tight dark-colored shirt under a leather jacket, and skinny jeans, his hair pulled back in a short ponytail. The way his hair is starting to frizz and the few strands that have fallen loose make him look disconcertingly soft and human. His forehead is shiny with sweat, the angles of his face bordering on gaunt.
“You’ve been tracking me like a wild animal for months. Capture or kill?” asks Barnes.
Straight to the point, okay. Well, Sam isn’t going to ignore the social niceties here. “Hey, I’m Sam.”
“I know. Sam Wilson, codename Falcon. Answer the question, please,” says Barnes, surprisingly soft-spoken.
“Steve’s been looking for you. Do you remember him? Steve Rogers?”
Steve thinks he must, thinks Barnes is the one who pulled him from the Potomac. Sam’s not so convinced.
“Steve’s not here, you are. You’re the one who’s been tracking me. Capture or kill?”
“Capture’s a loaded word,” hedges Sam. “We just wanna make sure you’re safe. Get you some help.”
“And that help will be a cage,” says Barnes.
His expression flickers from what Sam can now recognize is an effortful calm, to a tension in his jaw and a twist to his lips that suggest a quiet agony. Sam wishes there was enough light in this alley to make out the look in his eyes.
“Not prison,” says Sam, because Steve will raise hell if anyone throws Barnes in prison.
“A nicer cage, then. Still a cage. And that’s if HYDRA don’t take me.”
“The Avengers aren’t HYDRA.”
The twist of Barnes’ lips turns bitter. “Can you say the same about the government?”
Sam could, but he can’t be sure it’d be true. Even the best case scenario Steve, Sam, and Nat have managed to cobble together for Barnes involves a carefully monitored stay in some highly secure Stark property, with regular and frequent visits from shrinks and agents to deprogram and debrief Barnes. Sam hopes it will be a kind cage, that Barnes will be treated with dignity, that he’ll be looked after as he recovers from an experience that Sam, frankly, is not certain can be recovered from. But kind or not, it will still be a cage. Sam has no idea if Barnes will ever be allowed to live outside of one. And that’s the best case scenario. Barnes is right to worry about HYDRA’s tendrils still being in the government, and what that could mean for him.
“Maybe not, but we can keep you safe. No one will hurt you,” says Sam, unsure if that’s even an assurance he should be giving, and Barnes nods, short and sharp, a quirk of grim amusement on his lips now.
“I get it, you don’t think I’m a person anymore,” says Barnes, flat and conversational. And yeah, okay, Sam hears his own words, his tone; he sounds like he’s talking to a wild animal. Barnes continues, “That’s fair. I think when they take that from you, you can’t get it back, maybe.”
Sam doesn’t know what hurts more, sharp and shocking: Barnes’ tone, painfully matter-of-fact, or his words, all too self-aware.
Sam has read the Winter Soldier file, what there is of it. It’s a chronicle of such profound and brutal dehumanization and torture, that the fact that Barnes is here talking and reasonably stable seems like a miracle. HYDRA had spent decades turning a man into a weapon, and despite what Steve hopes, Sam has never been sure there’s anything left of the man.
Now he thinks there is, and that maybe that just makes everything about this worse. This was the guy who kicked you off a helicarrier, who shot Steve and Natasha, Sam reminds himself. Eyes on the mission.
“What were you doing here in this club? Tracking someone?” asks Sam.
He’s stalling, but he’s not sure what else to do. He could hit his panic button, have local law enforcement here in minutes, have the Avengers on the way. He could try to fight Barnes, though he has no illusions about how he’ll do in hand-to-metal-hand combat against the goddamn Winter Soldier. He’s got a super-soldier grade tranq hidden in a pen in his pocket that may or may not work on Barnes, and even if it does, then he’s got a couple hundred pounds of unconscious super soldier to deal with. Sam’s always known that the only way he’s bringing Barnes in is if Barnes chooses to come with him, and now that the possibility is actually in reach, Sam’s not sure how to get there.
Barnes blinks, tilts his head. “No. I just wanted to dance. And it’s—good. To be around so many people. It’s—exposure therapy. To get used to it again. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“Exposure therapy,” repeats Sam blankly. “In a club.”
“I know I can’t be a person anymore. There’s not enough left,” Barnes says plainly. “But I—I’d like to live, while I can.” Barnes’ voice cracks on the last words. He clears his throat, and jerks a nod towards the club. “I could be alive, in there. For a while.”
Jesus fucking Christ, what am I doing here, Sam thinks, his heart pounding wildly, a vicious ache twisting sharp and sudden in his chest.
“No one’s going to kill you, if you come in,” he says. “That’s—that’s not the plan.”
“It won’t be living though. It would be—operating. Functioning. I would be—an animal in a cage. A weapon, being repaired. Not living, not alive. Not really.”
Fuck. There’s a lot to unpack there, and Sam tucks it away to consider later, the way Barnes is making a distinction between survival and living. Sam wishes Barnes was wrong about the cage. He really, really does. God knows Steve still thinks Barnes can have a real life, free and clear. Sam and Natasha have never been so sure, and it seems Barnes shares their pessimistic pragmatism.
“Hey, no, that’s not—there’ll be people to help you, doctors—” tries Sam anyway.
Barnes’ eyes widen, and he takes a step back, shifts his weight so he’s light on his feet even as his whole body goes rigid. “I’ve had enough of doctors digging around in my body, my brain. No. No, I can’t—I won’t—”
Fuck fuck fuck. Sam is not qualified for the sheer number of the mines in this guy’s trauma minefield, he really isn’t. And looking at Barnes now, Sam finds that he can’t be the one to put him in a cage, not yet, no matter how kind and well-appointed a cage it is. Because this isn’t the dead-eyed, relentless Winter Soldier, this is whatever’s left of Bucky Barnes.
“Okay, no doctors, sure. That’s your call, man. You get to choose.”
Even the best case scenario is a nightmare for Barnes, isn’t it, thinks Sam. So okay, Plan B. It’s not the one Natasha had quietly shared with him and only him, the contingency plan for if Barnes is stable but too at risk of being recaptured and used or executed as the Winter Soldier by HYDRA or the government: the one where they fake Barnes’ death so well that even Steve believes it at first, and then set Barnes up somewhere with a quiet and anonymous life. That’s Sam and Natasha’s last resort, because they don’t want to break Steve’s heart like that. Surely this insane plan Sam is forming now is better than that, right?
God, Sam hopes he’s not going to regret this.
“Really,” says Barnes, flat and disbelieving.
“Yeah, of course.” Keep him talking, keep him here… “You the one who burned down that HYDRA base?”
Barnes nods, relaxing the barest degree. “I remembered there were things there…things that HYDRA shouldn’t have access to. That no one should have access to.” Barnes reaches for his jacket pocket and Sam tenses, his own hand going for his weapon. Barnes lifts his hand again, empty. “I have intel. I was going to leave it for Interpol, but…maybe better for the Avengers to have it.”
“Alright,” says Sam, and tries to relax. If Barnes wanted him dead, he’d already be dead. “Hand it over then.”
Barnes pulls a flash drive from his pocket and tosses it to Sam, then Barnes shifts on his feet like he’s about to make a run for it, so time to suggest Plan B.
He rushes to say, “You have to come in, you can’t stay on the run forever. The other options—they’re worse. You get that, right? If HYDRA finds you again, if some other agency or government does—Steve, the Avengers, they’re your best hope.”
“I know,” says Barnes, his brow furrowing.
“You’re gonna have to come in eventually,” says Sam, then he takes a deep breath and steps away from Barnes, back towards the club. “But it doesn’t have to be now.” Barnes’ eyes widen, and he goes utterly still. “I’ve got some conditions though, if I’m gonna let you go.”
“Let me go?” asks Barnes, some dark amusement in his expression now. “I can just go, and you won’t catch me.”
This is, admittedly, true. “Sure. And I can also make a single call and have every single law enforcement officer and soldier in this city and country looking for your ass. Maybe you’ll still get away, maybe you won’t, but it’ll be a pain in the ass either way.”
Sam’s bluffing, a little, though not entirely. He can ensure it’ll be very difficult for Barnes to get out of Prague, much less the country. Barnes considers him, and apparently decides that’d be too much of a hassle to deal with, because he asks, “What conditions?”
“You need to check in with me regularly—”
Barnes shakes his head already. “Patterns, routines, they’re dangerous—”
“Doesn’t have to be on a schedule, do it as randomly as you want, but I expect some kinda proof of life and proof of not being on a murderous rampage at least once every two weeks, and in-person check-ins once every month. After that, I’m gonna come looking, and I’ll be bringing backup.”
“The check-ins will have to be secure,” says Barnes tentatively.
“We can go get a pair of burner phones right now,” says Sam. “Swap out sim cards on an irregular schedule, and send each other the new number before we do. And you can pick where we meet up, as long as it’s reasonably safe for both of us. Deal?”
“You can’t tell Steve,” says Barnes. “I—I’m not ready to—please don’t tell him.”
Yeah, no shit Barnes isn’t ready. Steve isn’t either, no matter what he thinks.
“I won’t tell Steve,” promises Sam. “So, do we have a deal?”
He holds out a hand. Barnes reaches out slowly, and shakes. It kind of feels like maybe this is the first handshake the poor bastard’s had since getting defrosted.
“Deal,” says Barnes.
They find a sketchy corner shop that’s still open, and buy a couple of cheap burner phones, set them up, and then that’s it, they’re parting ways. It’s surreal. Sam has no idea if he’s just made the biggest mistake of his life, if he’s doing the equivalent of letting a rabid animal go because it’s cute and sad. He’s running on pure instinct here, and it’s never steered him wrong before, but there’s always a first time. Still, Barnes has to have stuck around to talk for a reason. He could have ditched Sam easily, and instead he handed over some intel and let Sam make his case. That has to be a good sign.
“Thank you,” says Barnes, outside the shop.
“Don’t make me regret this,” says Sam.
“I won’t,” says Barnes solemnly. “I’ll try, anyway.”
Sam sighs. That’s just gonna have to do.
“If you’re gonna be hitting up clubs, maybe pick ones with better music next time,” suggests Sam, and maybe it’s just a trick of the dim light, but he’s pretty sure Barnes’ mouth ticks up into the slightest smile. Then between one blink and the next, Barnes is gone.
Afterwards, Sam can’t stop thinking of what Barnes had said: I get it, you don’t think I’m a person anymore. That’s fair. I think when they take that from you, you can’t get it back, maybe.
Is Barnes right? Has Sam just been assuming that there can’t be anything left of a person, not anything good anyway, after what was done to Barnes to make him into the Winter Soldier? Does he think Barnes is right, that once it’s taken, that personhood can’t come back? Or at least, that it’s right in Barnes’ case? The thought doesn’t sit well, not now that Sam’s actually spoken to him, seen him dance just because he wanted to. Because it made him feel alive. With the implication, Sam is realizing now, that he didn’t feel alive otherwise.
Sam’s a Black man who grew up in America—who grew up in Louisiana, no less—he knows a little something about what happens when people don’t think you’re a whole person the way they are. His ancestors were stolen to become chattel, and the legacy of that is something Sam still lives with every single day. He knows damn well that sometimes all you’ve got is your own bedrock certainty that you’re just as much a person as anyone else, no matter how much the world insists on telling you otherwise. Barnes though…he’d said I know I can’t be a person anymore. There’s not enough left. Enough left of what? His memories? His self, whatever combination of intangible traits and habits and feelings and memories that it is that makes a self?
Whatever he meant, there’s enough left that Barnes wants to live. There’s enough left for him to want to dance, to be among people again, to not want to hurt anyone.
Sam has spent this whole last year looking for Barnes assuming that he would need to be stopped, one way or another, rather than saved. Him not immediately going on a murder spree had been encouraging news, sure, but Sam had figured that just meant that the stopping might end up being slightly less violent. Sam had gone on this missing persons search/manhunt more for Steve’s sake than anything else, hoping to spare Steve some of the heartbreak of this search.
Now though? Now Sam has heard Barnes say that he doesn’t think he’s a person anymore, that there isn’t enough left of him for that, but that he wants to live anyway. He knows what exposure therapy is, and is trying it out in an admittedly weird way. So he knows he isn’t okay and he’s trying to get better. He said he doesn’t want to hurt anyone, and since getting free of HYDRA, he hasn’t, apart from some HYDRA goons. A guy who says shit like that, who does things like that…that guy doesn’t need to be stopped, he needs to be saved.
Always coming to the rescue, says Sarah’s voice in his mind. She’s said it so many times over the years: with fondness, with frustration, with anger, with sadness, with love. Sam knows himself, knows that one meeting with Barnes has turned this into a rescue now.
Of course, none of that means he’ll be able to save the Bucky Barnes that Steve is so desperate to get back. Sam doesn’t know what Barnes does or doesn’t remember, but he’s not surprised that Barnes doesn’t want to see Steve. It was pretty common for the more traumatized vets Sam had counseled at the VA to want to isolate themselves, to avoid loved ones. Some of them just needed some time and space to process shit on their own before they could deal with other people’s issues and feelings, and Sam figures that might be for the best in Barnes’ case.
Not that Steve would agree, thinks Sam with a wince.
Sam really hopes Barnes sticks to the deal they’ve made. Though Sam himself is pushing at the rules of that deal when he calls Steve. He doesn’t tell Steve that he actually met Barnes and spoke to him, but he does say he got close and that Barnes seemed okay, that he left some intel for them.
“I just wish he’d come to me,” says Steve, agonized. “I know he remembers me.”
Sam sighs. “You gotta put yourself in his shoes, man. Maybe he remembers you some, sure, but enough to trust you? To trust anyone? Recovering memories doesn’t necessarily happen in order, it’s not like he’s gonna be able to read a book of his life.”
“If I could just talk to him, tell him who he used to be, help him remember—”
“It still wouldn’t be enough,” says Sam, as kindly as he can. Steve’s not the only one who’s ever been sure he could fix a loved one all on their own. It never works out, in Sam’s experience. “He’s doing his best to keep himself safe, Steve. That might be as good as it gets for a good long while.”
Sam calls Nat next, and he gives her some of the details he left out of his report to Steve, though he doesn’t tell her he talked to Barnes either. It’s too soon, he tells himself. He’ll see how this deal works out, if it does, and then maybe he’ll tell Natasha. Even with the omission, Natasha seems pleased.
“I’ll get the intel where it needs to go,” she says. “It’s a good sign that he’s giving it to us.”
“Yeah, I think so too. But tell that to Steve,” he says, and Natasha shakes her head.
“Steve’s gotta adjust his expectations. Keeping tabs on Barnes is the next best thing to bringing him in, as far as I’m concerned,” she says, and even though she doesn’t mean it that way, Sam takes it as tacit permission.
This deal is a way to keep tabs on Barnes is all. Sam will try to help the guy as best he can while he’s at it, but it’ll be enough to at least know that he’s safe and sane enough to not be going on rampages.
Sam spends a few days dithering over whether or not to text Barnes’ burner phone, to offer some kind of help or support, because that’s what he’d do for anyone else. (Yeah, maybe that “you don’t think I’m a person anymore,” is rankling, maybe there’s a twist of shame and guilt there.) He decides against it, ultimately, wary of spooking Barnes or driving him to ditch the burner.
Instead, he spends some time poring over the intel Barnes provided, and follows up on some of the leads on HYDRA outposts. He knows he won’t find Barnes, obviously, but it feels pretty good to blow some of these places the fuck up.
On the 12th day after Sam first talked to Barnes, he gets a text on the burner phone: still alive, it says. And then there’s a date and time—tomorrow, 22:00—and a set of coordinates in Amsterdam. Google Maps informs him there’s an underground club there. Sam has the fleeting worry that this will be a trap, and his skin crawls as he approaches the place, walking through the open, well-lit plaza where a skilled sniper like the Winter Soldier could take him out with one headshot.
The Winter Soldier does not do that, thankfully. The Winter Soldier—Barnes—is waiting near the entrance to the club that leads literally underground, looking much the same as he had during their last meeting.
“Hey,” says Sam as he approaches. “Another club?”
“No one’s ever gonna look for me in places like this,” says Barnes, which is fair enough. He fidgets, a startlingly normal motion that disrupts the sense of a predator at rest. “Is this sufficient for a check-in? I haven’t hurt anyone.”
“Good to know,” says Sam. “How are you doing apart from that?”
Barnes blinks at him. “Functional.”
“I mean—you got a place to say? You eating regularly? ‘Cause it doesn’t entirely look like you are,” says Sam, eyeing Barnes’ almost-gaunt face, the thinness of his frame under the breadth of his shoulders.
“Yes. I have—I have money. It’s just—eating is difficult, sometimes.”
“How so?” asks Sam, but Barnes shrugs, a twitch of annoyance crossing his face.
“I’m fine,” he says. “I’m going to the club. You don’t have to come. See you next check-in.”
Then Barnes turns on his heel and stalks off towards the club. Sam follows after him.
“I don’t have to, but I’m gonna,” he says, and Barnes shoots him an, okay, yeah, slightly intimidating glare over his shoulder.
Sam follows anyway. Though he regrets it when they get in the club. It’s big, but the low ceilings, crowd of people, and darkness make the place feel claustrophobic. Plus, Barnes’ taste in music has not improved; it’s more techno, rave music shit, which Sam has never been a big fan of. He’s curious though, about just what Barnes is going to do in here, if he’s going to dance again. He doesn’t at first, instead prowling around the club as if getting the measure of it, moving easily through the crush of people. When Barnes eventually makes his way towards the dance floor, he looks back when Sam doesn’t follow.
“Don’t like to dance?” asks Barnes, needing to shout to be heard.
“Not to this kinda music,” says Sam, and thinks, not to any kind of music lately. Finding Barnes in the club a couple weeks ago had been the first time Sam had danced in years, apart from at a couple weddings. “I’ll be at the bar.”
He orders a beer and fights for some space in a high top chair at the bar. There’s a decent view of the dance floor from here, with the bar being up a set of stairs, with a lounge in the other half of the space. It takes some time to spot Barnes, and at first he only finds Barnes because of the space he carves on his path through the dance floor: he doesn’t get jostled, doesn’t get pushed. He just makes himself room, and moves through easily. Neat trick, thinks Sam, impressed despite himself. But then once Barnes has found a spot to his liking, everything about his body language changes, loosens. He becomes one more dancer in the crush of them, just as lost in the pounding music, moving to the same beat in the same way. Well, mostly the same way. He can’t seem to shed that predatory grace. And Sam privately concedes that Barnes can move those skinny hips of his pretty damn well.
Sam has no idea what time last call is here, but Barnes seems determined to stay until then, and Sam’s too stubborn to leave. He chats and flirts with a few people in various states of inebriation at the bar, nurses a couple drinks, then three, then switches to Coke in the hopes that the caffeine will keep him going. All the while, Barnes stays on the dance floor. Whatever he’s finding out there, it seems to be helping him: it’s not quite joy that’s writ large on his face, or ecstasy, but a kind of relief— or no, that’s not it. A release, maybe.
It’s almost three AM by the time Barnes calls it quits, and Sam’s kind of annoyed, but, well, Barnes had told Sam that he didn’t have to go with him. Now, he’s too wired and overstimulated to sleep, and he decides he’s gonna make that Barnes’ problem.
Outside, under the better lighting of the plaza, Sam sees that Barnes is flushed and sweaty, still loose-limbed. More surprisingly, there’s a shocking openness to his face, and between that and the hair falling out of his ponytail, he looks young and harmless, just another club kid after a fun night. Seeing him now, he looks nothing like the Winter Soldier.
“Exposure therapy seems to be going well,” says Sam wryly.
“It is,” says Barnes, and wow, okay, that’s some Steve levels of blue-eyed earnestness and eye contact.
“Okay, well, I’m starving, and it’s basically mandatory to eat something delicious and greasy after a night at the club, so c’mon, Barnes. There’s gotta be somewhere open around here.”
He cajoles Barnes into joining him for some kebab at a tiny restaurant nearby, which Barnes eats tentatively at first, before demolishing three whole wraps and chugging two bottles of water. Afterwards, he looks for all the world like one of those big jungle cats after eating a whole gazelle or something, sleepy and sated as he slumps on the stool. And chatty, apparently.
“You didn’t dance tonight,” notes Barnes. “You didn’t really the last time either.”
“Yeah, my clubbing days are behind me,” says Sam.
“Why?”
“Too old for that shit now.”
And too tired, too boring. That was what one of his dates in DC had said, anyway. The guy had dragged him to a gay club, and Sam had hated it the whole time: the noise, the music, the lights, the laughter. All of it had grated, and Sam had nearly bailed on his date.
It hadn’t been anything like the last time he’d been to a club before that, with Riley. A wild and reckless risk, to go to a gay club back then, with DADT still in force, and with all the members of the expensive and experimental EXO Falcon program under a microscope. That had only made it more thrilling, more necessary.
God, he and Riley had been so dumb, and so young.
“I’m apparently almost 100 years old and I don’t feel too old for it,” says Barnes, his tone entirely serious. Or maybe just deadpan. It’s hard to tell.
“Ah, but you’re engaging in therapeutic clubbing,” says Sam. “So, you need anything? Cash, supplies, fake IDs?”
“No,” says Barnes, getting up. “I raid HYDRA bases for all that.”
“You doing anything else to deal with all your shit other than hitting up the club?”
“My shit,” repeats Bucky, an edge in his voice now. “And what’s that, exactly? The brain damage? The conditioning?”
It’s a little weird, the way Barnes slides between speaking in stilted, short sentences, and a looser, more colloquial syntax that’s got a hint of New York in it rather than a flat and neutral American accent. It’s almost like he keeps code switching. Sam wonders if he’s aware of it, wonders what it means.
“The trauma,” says Sam. “If you know what exposure therapy is, I know you know you’ve got a shit ton of trauma to deal with.”
“Sure. Don’t think it’s the kinda thing you can ‘peer counsel’ away though, Wilson,” says Barnes, all his earlier relaxation disappearing. His stare has gone wary and cold, too sharp.
A thrill of icy alarm runs down Sam’s spine. Shit, of course Barnes has looked him up. He fights off his unease at the thought. If someone had been following him for months, he’d have looked them up too.
“Probably not,” Sam admits. “But we can still talk about it.”
Barnes is so far beyond Sam’s pay grade, counseling-wise, that it’s absurd. But Sam’s the guy who’s here now, so he has to try to help however he can.
“Thanks for the food. See you next check-in.”
Barnes leaves, and Sam lets him go with a wince and a sigh. Sam shouldn’t have pushed his luck.
Sam and Bucky’s next meeting comes just fifteen days later, in a train station in Brussels rather than a night club for a change. Maybe it’s just that Sam’s seeing him properly in the light of day for the first time, but Barnes is looking kind of rough: while he can easily pass as a backpacking tourist at first glance, a closer look at his haggard, pale face reveals the dark circles under his eyes, and he looks way too grim and miserable to be a tourist on an adventure.
“I can’t stay long,” says Barnes, his quiet voice hard to hear over the din of the train station. He hands over a flash drive. “But I remembered something the Avengers or someone should follow up on.”
“Alright, I’ll get it to Steve or Nat,” says Sam, and Barnes nods, then he turns to go. Sam catches him by the shoulder, and immediately regrets the thoughtless gesture when Barnes goes so tense he’s practically vibrating, a sense of restrained violence pouring off of him. Sam fights off the rush of answering adrenaline; he’s probably just narrowly avoided getting decked, or worse. “Shit, sorry—just, you’re not looking so hot, Barnes. You okay? You need anything?”
“Haven’t been sleeping so great,” mutters Barnes. “It’s fine, I’m fine. Gotta go.”
A train screeches into the station, and Barnes darts onto it, past the people disembarking. Sam lets him go.
The next meeting is much the same, and it comes only a week after the last one, sooner than their deal requires. Barnes passes over more intel at a cafe in Budapest, looking somehow even more exhausted, though at least this time he consents to sit with Sam for a bit. Alarmingly, he only agrees to this so he can down a rapid succession of espresso shots. By number eight, the server looks concerned and like she’s tempted to refuse to bring him any more.
“Jesus, Barnes, you wanna have a heart attack?” asks Sam, aghast.
“This is the only way I’ll get even a little bit of a buzz, and even that won’t last long,” says Barnes grimly, before lurching up to go.
“Hey, maybe you shouldn’t—” But Barnes is already gone.
So, he doesn’t seem like he’s doing so hot.
The intel Barnes gave him keeps Sam busy for a while, and he meets up with Steve and Natasha to raid and destroy a couple HYDRA bases.
“If Bucky’s gonna keep feeding us intel, he could at least come raid these bases with us,” says Steve, frustrated, as he tosses his shield at some HYDRA agents.
“Probably for the best that he doesn’t,” says Natasha. “We can’t risk HYDRA getting their hands on him again.”
“It’s a good sign, man,” Sam tells Steve, between shots at HYDRA agents. “And he’s setting a boundary, you gotta respect it.”
Naturally, Sam doesn’t mention that this boundary doesn’t include Sam himself.
Though he starts to worry that it does as the deadline for Barnes’ next check-in creeps closer and closer with no word from Barnes. Sam still avoids ever texting Barnes first, wary of losing this limited line of communication, but he’s tempted to break that self-imposed rule now. Before he can, Barnes finally texts him again, only this time it’s not a set of coordinates and a date, it’s a picture of a brightly colored flyer or poster in Spanish that’s advertising a rave that weekend in Ibiza. Of fucking course. And just when Sam had started hoping that Barnes was finished with his exposure therapy via clubbing strategy.
Sam goes, of course. Barnes had failed to give him a specific time or place to meet him, and Sam doesn’t even have a ticket to this rave—Sam hadn’t even known you need tickets to these things—so after he eats some dinner, he mills around the outside of the venue, feeling wildly out of place among all the hot young people in skimpy clothes. Sam knows he’s not that much older than a lot of these people, that plenty of them are also adults with boring day jobs here to let loose, but he sure as hell feels old and stodgy, unmoved by the party atmosphere that seems like it must be a permanent part of Ibiza.
The Sam of ten or maybe even five years ago would’ve been thrilled to be here. That Sam would’ve had fun, would’ve been the life of the party. Sam’s not sure what happened to that guy; he disappeared so slowly that Sam hadn’t even noticed, subsumed under the dully stable routine of his life in DC.
Had his routine, his life, really become so numbing and boring as all that? He’d needed the stability of it, the steadiness, he knows he did. That had kept him going, after losing Riley and the wings and Gideon and his parents and his titi. He shakes off the downer thoughts, tries to act like he’s excited to be here, that the uneasy free fall feeling in his stomach is anticipation and not the awareness that his parachute has failed to deploy.
After the third person approaches him to ask him if he’s selling drugs or scalped tickets, Sam’s this close to bailing entirely. Thankfully, Barnes finally shows up, prowling towards him looking sleek and dangerous in all black. There are still dark circles under his eyes, but he doesn’t seem nearly as haggard or exhausted, and the vaguely Eurotrash look he’s rocking suits him. There’s something different about him though, and Sam tries to put a pin in it as Barnes reaches him.
“Loosen up, Wilson, you look like a cop,” says Barnes with some amusement. His syntax is back to being loose and relaxed. A good sign, Sam hopes.
“This really isn’t my scene, man,” he says, and studies Barnes.
He pinpoints the difference immediately: there’s something bright and alive in Barnes’ eyes, maybe even wild. His face isn’t set in lines of miserable exhaustion, it’s lively, avid and focused. He looks damn good, Sam realizes. And damn dangerous, too: the brightness in Barnes seems like it might be on a knife’s edge. Or maybe that brightness is the knife’s edge itself, glinting in the light.
“Hmm, didn’t take you for such a stick in the mud,” says Barnes. “Figured you for a hotshot, daredevil pilot type, with those wings of yours. What, you never let loose?”
“I let loose plenty,” says Sam, and knows it for a lie the second the words come out of his mouth.
Fuck, does he, though? An odd sense of panic starts to rise in him. What the fuck has he been doing the last few years? He’s been good, he’s been fine, he’s done everything he’s supposed to: he’s held down a good, stable job with benefits; he’s taken proper care of himself, working out and eating right and sleeping at least six hours a night; he’s supported his community; he’s gone out on dates.
(He has not gone back home to Delacroix. He hasn’t dated anyone for longer than a month. His days went like this: he went for a run, he went to work, he lifted weights, he made dinner, he watched whatever was on TV, he went to sleep, he woke up, he went for a run—Sometimes he went out on dates. He was charming and nice and attentive and he never felt a damn thing for any of the perfectly nice and decent guys and women. He had sex with them anyway, looking for the feeling, and it didn’t come, even if they both did. He went golfing with work friends some weekends, went out to bars on others. He called Sarah once a week on Saturday mornings. He volunteered at the homeless shelter. He went for a run, he went to work, he lifted weights, he made dinner, he watched whatever was on TV, he went to sleep he woke up he went for a run—where the fuck had the years gone. Run, work, weights, dinner, TV, sleep—he threw it all away the second Steve Rogers knocked on his door and asked for help, and only then had he—)
Barnes stares at him, as if he can see Sam’s awful epiphany. “Okay,” says Barnes.
“So, what’s the plan here?” asks Sam. “Same as before, you dance like some kinda club kid like that’s a reasonable coping mechanism for dealing with your shit?”
“Yes,” says Barnes, then turns on his heel and starts stalking off with a purpose. “But first I’m going to acquire some drugs.”
Sam gapes at him for a second then rushes to catch up. “Wait, what—”
“Methylenedioxymethamphetamine, commonly known as MDMA or ecstasy or molly—”
“Okay, hold up, I really don’t think—”
“—an empathogen and stimulant with mild psychedelic properties—”
“ —right, yeah, a party drug, Barnes, what the hell—”
“ —that’s been used as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder—”
“In a controlled, therapeutic setting, with a trained professional! And all that is still experimental!”
“Aren’t you a counselor?” tosses Barnes over his shoulder.
“This isn’t safe! And is it even gonna work on you?”
“I have calculated the safe dosage for my metabolism, based on the extensive records of other drugs I’ve been dosed with.”
Well that’s grim as fuck. Sam pulls out his phone and does some quick googling while he walks. “Okay, well, setting aside the potential of dying, the adverse effects of using MDMA include memory issues and difficulty sleeping, which I think we can both agree you’ve got enough of as it is, and—and you could have a psychotic break for all we know—”
Sam is not enjoying how much he sounds like a fear-mongering DARE officer here, but seriously, this is such a bad idea—
“I won’t die. And those adverse effects occur after extended use. This is not extended use.”
Sam tries a different tack. “You’re assuming whatever you get is actually MDMA, it could be cut with god knows what!”
“I have thoroughly investigated and vetted this dealer, and his supply chain. This is as safe as it gets short of formulating it myself, and I don’t have the equipment for that.”
“Barnes, seriously, I just don’t think this is a good idea—”
Barnes stops abruptly and wheels on him, fury alight on his face, his eyes glimmering and burning with it.
“They put me on so many fucking drugs, for years. For decades,” spits Barnes viciously. “They were not fun drugs. Why the fuck shouldn’t I try some goddamn fun drugs for a change?”
Sam doesn’t want to admit that Barnes has a point there, but well, he kinda thinks Barnes has a point, even if it’s not the mature and measured thing to think.
Instead, Sam says, “Okay, well, I hear you.” Even though he thinks that reasoning ought to give Barnes just as many reasons to avoid all drugs entirely as to try some fun ones. “But that’s the kinda talk that sends you down the very slippery slope of addiction—”
“No,” says Barnes, shaking his head vehemently. “No dependency, no addiction. I’m never going through fucking withdrawal again. And I don’t plan on making a habit outta this, okay? I got enough brain damage, I know, I ain’t risking more.”
Sam doesn’t know if he should take it as a good sign or not that Barnes’ speech has slid back into what he assumes is closer to his natural speech patterns, rather than the earlier stiltedness as he rattled off drug facts. And this is all definitely a terrible idea, but hell, at least Barnes isn’t being impulsive about it. He’s put thought and planning into this, and his reasoning is rational enough. Not that that means anything about this is wise.
“Fine,” says Sam. “Guess I’ll be your trip sitter then.”
Barnes relaxes then, and smiles, sly and cocky, and Sam’s whole damn body flushes hot. He looks like fifty different kinds of bad idea, and he makes it look good. God, why the fuck does Sam have such terrible taste in guys?
“You oughta have some too, Wilson. Seems like you could use it.”
“One of us oughta be sober for this shit,” Sam grumbles. “Alright, come on, where’s this thoroughly vetted drug dealer of yours.”
After they acquire what looks like a deeply inadvisable amount of MDMA, Sam insists they stay outside the club after Barnes first takes it, in case he has an adverse reaction.
“I don’t want you losing it in a crowded club if this shit makes you get aggressive,” Sam tells Barnes.
Though it’s not like he’s entirely sure what the hell he’ll do if Barnes does go on a rampage. Fuck, this is such a fucking bad idea, but if Barnes is gonna do it, it’s best he does it while Sam is here.
“Fair enough,” says Barnes, and then downs a bunch of the tablets.
They people watch in silence for a while as they wait for the drugs to kick in, and Sam feels it again, that sense of distance from these happy partiers. God, when the hell did Sam get so boring? How had his life become so dull, before he teamed up with superheroes to fight Nazis and run after Barnes?
“I’m not a stick in the mud,” Sam tells Barnes.
“Okay.”
“Following your ass all over the world means I get a lot of tourism time in between punching Nazis and blowing shit up, and I am taking advantage of it, okay? I see the sights, I go on tours, I eat great food, try all kinds of amazing wines.”
“Sure,” says Barnes, blinking with wide eyes. He’s starting to fidget, bouncing around and shifting his weight from foot to foot. “I’m glad.”
“So just because I don’t wanna get high with you or dance to shitty techno music doesn’t mean I’m a stick in the mud. I am a fun guy.”
Barnes keeps staring at him, only now he’s biting his lip and making a weird face. “Mushroom,” he blurts out.
“What? No, no you are not doing shrooms on top of MDMA, nope—”
Barnes makes another weird muppet-like expression. “No, you said you’re a fun guy. Fungi. Mushroom.” Barnes laughs, apparently delighted by his not-at-all-a-joke.
This is not cute, Sam tells himself firmly. The Winter Soldier is absolutely not cute.
“Okay, I get it, it’s hitting now, huh?” he says.
Barnes nods, and okay, Jesus, his eyes are huge. “Wilson, can I hug you? You look like you need a hug. I would also like a hug. I don’t think I’ve had one since 1943.”
Good god, how is Sam going to survive this. He didn’t know what he thought a high Winter Soldier and/or Bucky Barnes would be like, but somehow, he hadn’t expected this.
“Yeah, sure buddy, we can hug,” he says, because he’s not a fucking soulless monster.
Also, this is therapeutic, probably. A healing, medicinal hug for a traumatized, ex-assassin POW. Totally chill and normal and not at all weirdly high stakes.
Barnes immediately latches onto Sam in a big, clingy hug, and Sam hugs back. It feels…really nice, actually. “Bucky,” says Barnes.
“What?”
“Bucky, not buddy. You should call me Bucky. It’s—I have a name. A nickname, even, like a real person.”
Sam closes his suddenly stinging eyes, and rubs Barnes’ back, which makes him sigh happily. “Yup, that’s what you are. A whole-ass, real person.”
Bucky hums somewhat dubiously and says, “A Bucky person, maybe. You should call me Bucky.”
Sam’s not sure sober Barnes will agree, but whatever. “Sure thing, Bucky. You can call me Sam.”
“Hugging feels amazing,” whispers Bucky, before giving Sam a squeeze that kind of takes the air from his lungs, then he releases Sam. “I bet dancing is gonna feel amazing too, come on, let’s go.”
Bucky drags him towards the security line into the club, which gives Sam a brief moment of panic over what they’re going to do about Bucky’s extremely noticeable metal arm, but Bucky apparently has some kind of forged medical paperwork for it, and they get waved on through.
Inside, the club is far swankier than the last couple they’d been to, and it’s enormous, with multiple levels. The light show happening near the DJ stage immediately entrances Bucky, and honestly, Sam too, because it’s pretty damn impressive. While the music still isn’t to Sam’s taste, the sound system is great and the beat is so all-encompassing and omnipresent that it’s like the air is made of music.
“We can go somewhere with music you like next time!” says Bucky.
Sam contemplates Bucky at a club’s funk or R&B night and decides he can deal with the techno, because he frankly doesn’t think he has it in him to watch Bucky getting his bump and grind on for allegedly therapeutic purposes.
“Oh, I don’t know, this music is growing on me!”
“Good, then come dance with me!”
Sam grits his teeth and thinks this going to raves while high bullshit better be healing as fuck for Bucky, then he follows Bucky to the dance floor.
A solid half of the dance floor is just people flailing and jumping around to the beat, while the other half is managing something slightly more graceful. It has to be just about as far as it’s possible to get from the swing dancing of Bucky’s youth—which he may or may not remember—but Bucky blends in with the rest of the more competent dancers, smoothly copying their moves and alternately looking utterly lost in the music and entranced by the light show. Sam keeps a close eye on him, and gamely dances with him until he judges that it’s time to get some water into Bucky. While he suspects that the serum will protect Bucky from any serious side effects, he still figures it’s best to avoid dehydration and overheating.
Through some impressive miracle of sound engineering, the bar area is quiet enough that people don’t have to yell to talk to each other, though the pounding bass of the music still travels up through his feet. Another welcome bonus is that the bottled water isn’t up-charged to hell and back. Sam gets them some water and guides Bucky to an out of the way corner of the bar before handing him the water. Bucky guzzles down one bottle quickly, then takes the next at a more reasonable pace while Sam sips at his own bottle.
“Feeling alright?” he asks Bucky, somewhat unnecessarily.
Bucky’s looking pretty blissed out, and his pupils are enormous. It’s giving him an even more intense Disney cartoon vibe than he usually has when he’s not glaring or glowering.
Bucky smiles brightly at him, and wow, okay, that’s—well, that is just an unfairly, ridiculously adorable and lovely smile for a cyborg assassin to have. No wonder so many of Steve’s Bucky stories involve the guy having all of Brooklyn wrapped around his finger, this smile is too damn sweet and powerful, and all the more charming for how it’s just a little bit goofy.
“I feel great! Sam, you should feel great too. What kind of music do you like, maybe we can ask the DJ to play it for you!”
Sam smiles and says, “That’s alright, I don’t think they take requests. Plus, I doubt this crowd would be all that into 90s R&B, let alone soul music or funk music.”
“I don’t know what any of that is,” says Bucky blithely. “But I’m sure it’s swell!”
“Oh my god,” mutters Sam, horrified. “We have got to get you caught up to the 21st century.”
“Sam, Sam, Sam,” says Bucky urgently, leaning in close. “I think it would make you feel better if you also took the drugs.”
“No, I’m good, Bucky. I feel fine—”
“You could feel better—”
“—and I’m not really a doing drugs kinda guy.”
“You’re not being very mushroom right now,” says Bucky with a pout, and Sam can’t help it, he laughs, feeling dangerously fond.
“How about you catch up on modern slang before you start making up your own, huh?”
Bucky wrinkles his nose at this, and it’s way too adorable. Sam’s going to miss all this silly expressiveness once Bucky is sober again.
“Okay, but Sam,” says Bucky, leaning in so close that he almost falls off his stool before Sam steadies him. “I am handling the drugs so great. So, so great. You don’t need to babysit me, you should also get to feel great. I promise I won’t do anything crazy and I will look after you too.”
Sam really shouldn’t be as touched by this as he is. He’s gonna blame the big blue eyes situation happening here. This is kinda like dealing with an enthusiastic, drunk puppy.
“That’s great, man, but I’m good, I promise.”
Bucky’s eyes somehow get bigger and oh no, now he looks sad. “But Sam. Sam, earlier, when you said you do let loose, you were lying. I could tell. And you looked sad.”
Bucky pauses, frowns, then shakes his head. “No, you looked trapped. Sad and trapped. I didn’t like that. You shouldn’t be sad, Sam, you should get to let loose. You’re—you’re fighting evil Nazis, and dealing with my shit, and even before all that, you were helping fucked up soldiers. You’re so good, Sam, you should get to feel good too.” His brow furrows, and he leans in again to peer even more closely at Sam. “Why don’t you let yourself feel good?”
Sam’s stomach flops around queasily with that gut punch.
“Oh okay, so this is the peer pressure to do drugs everyone warned me about,” says Sam faintly.
All that DARE bullshit had been totally wrong: the real peer pressure isn’t pimply teens calling you an uncool loser for not getting high, it’s a beautiful, deadly man who just wants you to feel good. Sam really hates how much this is doing it for him. He takes a fortifying swallow of water, and wishes for something stronger.
“Bucky, that’s sweet, you’re sweet, but I can’t—anyway, I’m not sad or trapped or whatever. I took the escape hatch already, I’m good, I’m fine.”
Because that’s what it had been, Sam is realizing now, when he’d followed Steve and Natasha without a second thought. Sure, it had been the right thing to do too, they’d saved lives, it had been a fight worth joining—but it had also been the first clear opportunity to bail on the nice, stable, good-for-him life that he’d so meticulously built up, and to have a good, unimpeachable reason for it. Because hadn’t he told a worried Sarah, this is important, Cap needs my help? The vets at the VA need your help too, she’d said. But I guess that’s not enough danger for you.
Sarah’s always seen him too damn clearly.
“No, you’re not fine,” says Bucky, abruptly serious, and somehow his solemnity isn’t at all undercut by his wide eyes, his enormous dark pupils.
Maybe Bucky sees him too clearly too.
The music in the club shifts, and the bass in the air and coming up through the floor is like the heartbeat of a living thing. Sam is suddenly very aware of his own heartbeat, pounding in counterpoint to the music. He feels the thrill and the rush building in him, like when he puts on his wings, like when he’s about to jump out of a plane without knowing what he’s jumping into.
“Take it from another trapped animal,” continues Barnes, his tone gone strange, his expression intense and searching, something wild in it. “You’re not fine. But you can be free, for a little while, at least. C’mon, Sam.”
Sam’s not a trapped animal; he’s broken free of the cage he’d managed to build himself. But he still can’t remember the last time he let loose. No, wait, he can—in the air, running air support for Steve and Nat during their last op. Which was the adrenaline talking, probably. And suddenly, that strange panic comes back, the sense that he’s missed something, that he’s fucked something up beyond repair without realizing it. Is the air the only place he can feel it anymore? Is he living his life just waiting for that rush?
That can’t be right. It can’t. He has to know—
“Yeah okay, hand it over,” he says, and Bucky beams at him.
Yeah, fuck the propaganda, drugs are great, thinks Sam giddily once the MDMA hits. Everything feels shimmery and crystal clear and amazing, and even the music is better, somehow.
“See? Feels good, right?” says Bucky, and Sam nods fervently, wincing when he realizes he’s clenching his jaw. Shit, that had been on the list of possible side effects, hadn’t it.
Whatever, it doesn’t matter, because the lights are magical and the music sounds like how flying feels and Bucky is here, warm and alive and improbably sweet. Sam hugs him, and Bucky hugs back, and it’s pretty much what Sam always imagined hugging a teddy bear would be like. Only, like, without fur, and also Bucky is very hard and muscly and he has a metal arm, but like, emotionally. Emotionally it’s like hugging a teddy bear. Sam attempts to convey this to Bucky, who just laughs and bounces up and down with him in time to the music.
Sam tries to teach Bucky some better dance moves, even though they don’t go with the music. Bucky tries to explain how all the dancers around them are like a beautiful ocean of stars, but like, stars that are also human, and Sam doesn’t really get it, but also, he totally gets it.
“That’s beautiful,” he tells Bucky earnestly. Then he takes Bucky’s face in his hands and says, “You’re beautiful. Like, not your face, but also yes your face, just, like—your soul or whatever.”
Bucky laughs, a few tears escaping. “That’s the drugs talking, Sam. Don’t think there’s much of my soul left.”
“There is!” Sam insists. “There is, and it’s so, so beautiful, you gotta know.” Sam’s too high to articulate this properly, but he tries anyway. “You’re trying to live. To really live, even though everything sucks.”
Bucky is clawing his way free of a deep, cold grave, and it matters, how hard he’s reaching for what scraps of life and warmth that he can find. Even if he’s reaching for them at raves, of all places. Although, Sam supposes there are worse places Bucky could be.
“You gotta try too,” says Bucky, suddenly intense. “Sam, you have to try to really live too.”
Sam is suddenly overcome by an almost-certainly MDMA-induced wave of love for this cyborg assassin from the goddamn 40s, and the only way he can think of to express it is to kiss him, so he does. Bucky makes a cute squeaking noise and then kisses back with enthusiasm, and it feels amazing, it’s the best kiss Sam has ever had, hot and wet and perfect and sweet, and okay, Sam is really thirsty, actually—
“Let’s get you some water, huh?” murmurs Bucky, pulling away to kiss Sam’s cheek and jaw and eyelids and nose, which is unfair and rude, because Sam wants to do all that to Bucky. “Just, fuck, you’re gorgeous.”
Kissing is great, but also Sam really does want some water, and when Bucky gives him a bottle, it’s the best thing Sam has ever tasted.
“I think this is magic water,” Sam tells him, and Bucky nods seriously, still drinking his own water.
“It does taste that way. You want another? I want another.”
The night passes in a haze of lights and music and touch and Sam feels it, he feels all of it, like a thermal that’s buoying him up and up and up into the stratosphere. I didn’t fuck this up, he thinks with giddy relief. I didn’t let something die in me along with Riley and Mama and Daddy and Gideon and Titi.
“Do I still look sad and trapped?” Sam asks Bucky. “Because I don’t wanna be sad and trapped.”
“You don’t, you aren’t,” Bucky assures him. “Not here, anyway.”
Which is good, because Sam doesn’t feel sad or trapped, not here on the dance floor with Bucky. He thinks he gets it, now, what has Bucky returning to dance floors like this, again and again. Like, yeah, sure, it’s a way to get used to crowds and people again that probably overrides his hyper vigilance, whatever. But there’s also a freedom here, a way to just be and feel, with the music drowning out their thoughts. Even if it’s not as good as flying or pulling off a rescue, it’s close enough, and it’s all the more intense to be sharing it with someone else, let alone someone like Bucky, who’s so intense and enthusiastic.
It’s almost dawn by the time they stagger out of the club, and Sam’s pretty sure the high is ebbing, and exhaustion is following in its wake, an inexorable current. On the way back to Sam’s hotel, arms around each other to keep themselves upright, Sam asks Bucky, “Did that help? Was that thera—therapo—therapeutic?”
“Dunno,” says Bucky. “Sure was fun though.”
Getting into Sam’s hotel room is a team effort, and it uses up the remainder of their combined energy and motor skills, so they both collapse into the bed together after some fumbling with the tightly tucked in sheets.
“I should—I gotta go,” mumbles Bucky, his face squished against the pillow, eyes already closed and his hair spilling messily over his face and the pillow.
Sam reaches over to clumsily pat his stubbly cheek. “No, shh, shh. Just—just take a quick nap first, okay?”
“A little nap,” agrees Bucky, but Sam is already falling asleep.
Sam wakes up feeling wrung out and gross and sore, and also he’s starving. The one saving grace is that he’s not really hungover, beyond the vague pounding in his head that says he could probably use more sleep and fluids. Even before he opens his eyes, he knows he’s alone in the room, which is simultaneously a disappointment and a relief, because drugs or no drugs, Sam remembers last night very clearly and he isn’t really sure he could look Bucky in the face right now. Or ever again.
God, he told the Winter Soldier that he has a beautiful soul. Sam is going to die. Either of mortification or at the Winter Soldier’s metal hand because Sam quite possibly took advantage of him. Or they took advantage of each other? The kissing had been mutual, sure, but that didn’t mean it had been a good idea.
He groans and tries to become one with the mattress. Sam has done some real dumb shit over the years, but getting high and making out with Bucky Barnes, aka the Winter Soldier, has got to be one of the dumbest. He’s damn lucky it didn’t end in disaster. Although, he thinks with grim amusement, there’s still time for it to end in disaster. He won’t be surprised if he never hears from Bucky ever again, and won’t that be fun to explain to Steve when Bucky is found dead in a HYDRA ditch somewhere: hey, so, I did find your bestie and even had a secure line of communication to him, but then we got high together at a rave and made out and he understandably freaked out and never contacted me again. Sorry.
Sam peels his sleep-sticky eyes open, and blinks until the blurry stuff on the nightstand resolves into a paper bag and a big bottle of Gatorade. Red Gatorade no less, which is his favorite. He heaves himself up from the bed to investigate the paper bag: there are two wax paper-wrapped things in it, which on closer inspection are revealed to be two big sandwiches, thank god. Or, he thinks, peering at the outside of the paper bag, thank Bucky. There’s a message scrawled on the bag: Thank you. See you next check in.
So okay, maybe some under-the-influence makeouts haven’t ruined everything.
Sam chugs half the bottle of Gatorade in one go, then demolishes one of the sandwiches before taking a very necessary shower, which gives him way too much time to think about last night, and Bucky goddamn Barnes, and how he just keeps on surprising Sam. Sam’s not sure what’s more surprising: all of Bucky’s possibly drug-induced sweet generosity, or the way he’d seen right into the heart of Sam. You looked trapped. Sad and trapped, Bucky had said.
Which, okay, Sam works pretty damn hard not to seem sad, not that he is sad. He’s sad a normal amount. He takes care of himself, he does everything he’s supposed to, he’s friendly, he talks to people, he smiles and smiles and smiles, and—
Sam switches the shower to cold, and stands under the icy spray until it drowns out his thoughts.
In the harsh light of Ibiza’s bright sunshine, last night’s elation feels very far away. He can’t tell if he’s genuinely down or only in a bad mood compared to the drug-induced euphoria, but already, the memories of those feelings of joy and delight and connection are growing faded.
Sam tells himself that’s just the comedown talking. That he doesn’t need drugs to feel that way. He’ll stay in Ibiza another night or two, go out on his own, go to a club with music he actually likes, eat some good food, have some pricy and fancy cocktails. Really treat himself. That’ll cheer him back up. First though, he’s gonna have a nap.
He dozes and drifts into unquiet, frenetic dreams, and by the time he gives up on a restorative nap, he feels worse than before. Coffee, he decides. Coffee and food, and then he’ll hit the town, find somewhere playing funk or soul or R&B, or hell, he’ll even take jazz, and maybe he can find someone to bring back to his hotel room for a good old-fashioned hookup. It’s been too damn long since he last got laid.
The coffee perks him up some, and he spends some time just walking around, taking in the atmosphere. He can appreciate the beauty of the place—the turquoise ocean sparkling in the sun, the golden sand and the swaying palm trees, the stone and whitewashed buildings clustered on the hill—and maybe it’s just that he’s here alone, but Sam still feels distant and disconnected from all these vacationing partiers. Maybe he’s just too old for this kind of place now. Maybe his partying days are thoroughly behind him. Maybe he’s just a relaxing on the beach kind of guy now.
But surely he can still feel that rush of joy, the thrill of a good time, without drugs to help him along. So yeah, fine, whatever, he’d ended up in a rut back in DC. Sam can see that now. The lingering impact of that was probably what Bucky was seeing, when he said Sam seemed trapped. Sam’s busted out of that rut pretty thoroughly now though, right? He’s out there superheroing it up, he’s got his wings back and they’re even new and improved courtesy Stark, he’s traveling the world on the Avengers’ dime to chase Bucky and he’s having a decent time while he’s at it. Recent bad decisions aside, Sam is doing great, okay?
And yet, the 90s R&B classics the DJ is spinning at the club don’t make him excited to dance, even though he dances anyway. The cocktails at the bar are cloyingly sweet, and watered down too. He finds a woman to dance with, and she’s aglow with dewy sweat and the lights of the club, curvy and gorgeous with a smile to rival the light show, and Sam doesn’t feel a damn thing for her other than polite admiration. He finds a guy to dance with, and he’s lithe and graceful, with these stunning high cheekbones and lush, smiling lips, and Sam only thinks that this is the kind of guy he should be into, he doesn’t quite feel it. Which he decides is good enough, when the guy kisses him—and if it’s nothing like Bucky’s kisses, the way they’d been generous and desperate in turn, then that’s for the best. Sam takes the guy to his hotel room, and they fuck, and it’s good, Sam is good at this, and the guy leaves Sam with a smile and a kiss on the cheek, and Sam gets back in bed and waits to feel any damn thing other than mildly satisfied.
He does it all again the next day, in the hope that it was just the comedown that had him feeling so off, but it’s the same thing. He gets all the steps right: the kissing, the foreplay, the sex. His body responds, and so does his partner’s. But it’s all just—moving parts. Nothing quite hits. Nothing connects, not entirely, not the way it does in the air or in a fight or—or with Bucky.
Bucky, who had somehow seen this in Sam before anyone else had.
So, okay, maybe the rut Sam’s been stuck in is deeper than he thought. That’s all it is though, and Sam’s got wings, doesn’t he? He’ll get out of it, without resorting to party drugs or other self-destructive choices. Counselor, heal thyself and all that.
He has to be able to get out of this rut.
Though he can’t help but remember what Bucky had said: you can’t get it back, maybe. And yeah, Bucky had been talking about all the humanity HYDRA had so brutally burned out of him, but the words echo with one of Sam’s own fears: that he’s lost something necessary in himself along with losing Riley, with losing his parents and his brother and his Titi, with his long absence from Delacroix, and that it’s something he can’t get back.