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Fandom: Marvel Pairing: SamBucky Word count: 4909 Rated: T+ Summary: Sam deals with the fallout of opening his big fat mouth. He's very dramatic about it. And more than a little embarrassed when it turns out he didn't really have any reason to be so dramatic.

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Somethin’ Stupid

Knowing each other as well as loving siblings could, he could tell Sarah had clocked him the second he walked in through the door, dragging her eyes across the defeated slump of his shoulders and letting them catch on the way his fists were visibly balled inside his pockets. She was at least kind enough to let Sam make his way in to the house at his own pace without saying anything. The TV was on mute so there wasn’t much to fill the sudden tension in the silence as he puttered around the kitchen looking for alcohol he knew wouldn’t be there. God, it would have been nice to have a drink just then. Too bad neither of them had made a run to the store since depleting their last bottle of wine over a night of gossip two weeks ago.

Returning her attention to the phone in her hand allowed them both the illusion that Sarah wasn’t waiting impatiently for him to wander over and spill his guts out, which Sam very much appreciated, so he showed his gratitude by giving up the search and liberating one of the juice bottles that were supposed to be for the boys’ school lunches. Sarah let her phone slide a little too casually off to one side when Sam flopped down next to her but for once he didn’t even care to try prying in to her business like a proper annoying brother. He didn’t have the energy right now.

“You look like someone just kicked your dog,” she told him.

“I feel like I just kicked my own dog,” he admitted with a wry twist to his lips. “Never felt so goddamn unimpressed with myself in my whole ass life.”

“Now that’s saying something.”

Her gentle teasing was appreciated, truly it was, even if Sam would never say so out loud. The smile he gave her was short lived but it untied at least one or two of the knots in his belly and that was nice. Sam had a feeling he wouldn’t be able to untie many more of those for himself anytime soon.

“Gonna tell me what’s wrong or am I gonna have to drag it out of you?”

“I did something stupid,” Sam said, flopping back to rest his head against the couch cushions and stare up at the ceiling.

Sarah hummed in that way she had where she just wasn’t surprised at all. “How bad?”

“Like…Frank Sinatra kind of stupid?” The words were sheepish, muttered low, and he knew she understood what he meant without having to look over just by the way her body shifted next to him, twisting all the way around to face him head on.

“Oh my god. Sam. You were just-. Weren’t you out with Bucky tonight?”

“I was.”

“You didn’t…”

“I did.” Closing his eyes like that could block out the world and the days ahead, Sam took a breath in and quietly sang that bittersweet Sinatra to the room around them. “The time is right, your perfume fills my head, the stars get red, and oh the night’s so blue. And then I go and spoil it all by saying something stupid like I love you…”

A light touch on his knee made his breath hitch but Sam couldn’t bring himself to open his eyes just yet. He didn’t want to see the pity in his sister’s eyes. Not after all the hours she’d spent talking up his confidence to finally speak his feelings in to the universe, not after all the times she’d smiled across the kitchen table with bone-deep assurances that of course Bucky had to feel the same way, of course the two of them would be perfect together. After tonight he thought maybe he might cool it on accepting her well meaning pep talks for a while because clearly she was a lot farther off the mark about some shit than she thought.

When it became clear that he wasn’t going to continue without prompting Sarah’s light touch became a firm hand gripping his knee, shaking the limb gently to recapture his attention back from whatever dark place his mind had just gone to.

“Tell me what happened?” she murmured.

“God, nothing great.” After a deep sigh and running both hands down his face Sam finally opened his eyes but continued staring upwards, watching shadows from the TV dance across the ceiling. “He froze up the second the words were out of my mouth. I didn’t even mean to say it, that’s the worst part, it just kind of slipped out because the words are just always right there on the tip of my tongue.”

“Because you are in love with him.” As if there was any need to point that out.

Sam gave a rough snort. “Of course I am! I’m so stupid over the man I’m surprised I remember how to speak my own language every time he so much as stands in the same room as me.”

“Okay, so, he froze. And then what happened?”

“Then he fucking bolted and- shit. God damn it, Sarah, I-. I’ve never seen that look on his face before. Like I’d just punched him in solar plexus while casually informing him that I’d travelled back in time to murder his family. He couldn’t get away from me fast enough. This is, just, I know. Okay? I know for sure I’ve fucking done it this time.”

He paused when Sarah shook his knee again, startled in to actually turning his head to meet her eye.

“Done what?”

“Chased him away.” Sam let out a hollow laugh and dropped his head back again. “Fucked it up. Ruined everything. Lost the best friend I’ve ever had because I couldn’t keep my damn business to myself.”

“Hey now…”

Prickly heat gathered behind his eyes but Sam refused to let himself tear up, not even when Sarah reached over to pull him in for a hug. That felt nice. Actually that felt great, Sam really didn’t get enough hugs from anyone lately and even though he knew he could just ask for them it was harder these days than it ever had been to ask for help. Even when that help was something as simple as a hug. When she sat back Sarah kept one hand on his cheek so he had to keep looking her way.

“I really don’t think you’ve fucked it up as badly as you think you have,” she said.

“How do you figure?” Sam asked wearily, twisting the cap off his juice finally and pounding the whole lot of it back in one go. It had none of the burn a good tumbler of whiskey might have had. Still tasted pretty good though.

“Because Bucky called me to panic just a couple minutes before you came home.” Sarah fumbled for the phone at her side while Sam tried not to fly apart with a sudden mixture of too many different emotions to name, all of which intensified when she turned the screen towards him. “And, you know, I kind of never bothered to hang up. So he just-”

“-heard all of that,” Sam finished for her in disbelief.

And now he could definitely think of names for some of those emotions. Anger and hurt and betrayal that she would ever play him like that. Cold fear and a deep sadness that he had just unknowingly dug his own grave so much deeper than it was already dug. Shame for the almost irresistible urge to grab that phone and babble out a thousand apologies, praying all the while that maybe Bucky might hear out even one or two of them before he hung up. Confusion over why he hadn’t yet.

Sam could hear his own heart thundering in his ears as he sat up to remove himself from the couch with very slow, very precise movements. Whatever hard expression his face had settled in to had his sister blinking with surprise and actually drawing back a little. Good. He really hoped she felt even half of his mortification when the reality of what she’d done came crashing down on her later.

“I’m disappointed in you, Sarah,” was all he had to say.

Because Sam Wilson was a true son of Paul and of all the many things they had both inherited from their parents, Sam had inherited their father’s voice. He knew the tone and the cadence and just the right way to twist his words with a low rumble to strike right where it hurt the most. The gasp that chased after him as he stormed out of the room told him he’d hit his mark, hit her with daddy’s words in daddy’s voice in a way that would get his message across so much better than flying in to a rage ever could. Sarah’s calls for him to come back were soft and weak. He didn’t bother to listen. The front door squealed violently on its rusty hinges when he slammed his way through it and Sam took an almost vindictive pleasure in the sound of it crashing against the side of the house only to swing back and crash shut again.

Predictable as it might have been, there was really only one place Sam could go to cool his head now that the very idea of being in that house with his sister made him want to claw his own skin off. It was a bit of a hike on foot but Sam found the movement helped to calm his racing heart a little bit so by the time he arrived at the pier he was at least breathing normally instead of puffing away like a very angry bellows. Just the sound of water lapping against the row of boats brought him down a little bit farther. Was he still enraged that Sarah could violate his trust like that? Of course he was. Did he still feel like punching her in the face? Maybe not quite as hard. Okay, still pretty hard though. At the very least he was able to settle himself on the end of the pier and keep relatively still without falling to pieces, staring out across the water like maybe the answers were out there, swimming in the waves.

What, he wondered, was he supposed to do now? Fear of this exact scenario was exactly why he’d been so reluctant to share his feelings all this time. He’d known there was little - if any - chance they might be reciprocated and he’d been fine with that, truly. But the thing was that he knew Bucky, he knew the guy pretty fucking well by now, so he’d been able to see this kind of reaction coming a thousand miles away. Bucky was a man who carried guilt like an old favorite sweater you refused to give away no matter how old and tattered it got. Even when the guilt wasn’t his own; even when it was over something he wasn’t able to control like other peoples’ feelings. Obviously it wasn’t anyone’s fault that Bucky didn’t feel the same. He’d never consciously sat down and made the executive decision not to fall in love. Sam knew that. Unfortunately he also knew that these unrequited feelings were all Bucky was going to be thinking about any time they had to see each other from now on and no matter how Sam tried to reassure him that everything was fine he would always feel bad. An uncrossable rift with no bridge to span the gap.

So that led them here, to Sam sitting at the end of the pier, staring at nothing and trying to reconcile himself with the fact that their friendship was, in all likelihood, over now. A possibility he’d always known could happen yet refused to face head on. He kind of wished he could just turn and flee from himself the way Bucky had.

“Ugh.”

No words could ever hope to sum up the mess inside his chest but that wordless noise of disgust was a good start. Sam considered flopping down on his back but at least sitting up he had the water to look at. Laid out on the wooden slats he would have nothing but the stars that he and Bucky had been making up constellations for barely an hour before. Just realizing what their evening would have looked like to anyone else made him squeeze his eyes shut, pressing the heels of both hands against them in consternation. He must have been an idiot to suggest an activity so blatantly close to a date. Gods above, he’d basically set himself up to fail tonight.

Distracted as he was, it took until the gentle footfalls of a man deliberately trying to make noise came within a dozen feet of him before Sam went rigid. He knew the rhythm of those steps. If he were perfectly honest he was already halfway to accepting that he might never hear those steps again unless maybe the fate of the world itself was threatened. That was really the only scenario he could see Bucky voluntarily approaching him after this fiasco - and even then he wasn’t sure there would be any actual approaching as opposed to Bucky just sort of hanging around the assembled group at large without interacting face to face. Knowing he was only a few steps behind, that there was no possible way he hadn’t seen Sam there and yet chose to keep walking, well. Sam wished that could fill him with hope. He found instead that his stomach felt heavy and twisted. Whatever was happening right now, it could not be good.

“We-” Bucky’s voice made him shiver with just one cut off syllable. He hoped the darkness covered his involuntary reaction. “Uhm. That wasn’t planned. Just so you know. It was an accident, me overhearing all that.”

“Alright.” Unsure what else he was supposed to say, Sam opted to just keep his eyes facing forward. A truly pathetic part of his heart wanted nothing more than to turn around and take the other man in one last time, to memorize the lines and shapes and colors of him as if he hadn’t already a thousand times over, but he did have some pride. Not much left but some.

“I should have just hung up.”

“So why didn’t you?” he asked, keeping his voice as even as possible.

He could practically hear Bucky giving that helpless little shrug of his. “I dunno. She told me not to. Didn’t even realize why she was just letting me hang there without saying anything until I heard your voice.”

“Okay.” Sam nodded once. “I believe you.”

That did sound like Bucky. As unsociable as a lot of the general public thought he was, the man was actually fairly self aware in most situations. The thing was that he’d been a victim of forced obedience for seventy years and he still backslid sometimes, still followed orders without question when his guard was down, and that wasn’t something that Sam could ever hold against him. Sarah probably hadn’t thought anything of cutting off their conversation with a low ‘stay on the line!’ and not explaining further.

Wooden boards groaned softly as Bucky shifted back and forth behind him. Sam dropped his head a little lower to stare at his own hands, wrung together so tight his knuckles were pale even in the darkness.

“You don’t have to stay,” he choked out. “I made you uncomfortable. You’re allowed to be uncomfortable. If you need to not be here anymore, well, you know I get it. I get you. And you know I’ve been thinking about getting myself a place up in DC lately so you’ll still be able to visit with her and the boys whenever you want. Ain’t gotta lose your family over this.”

“Oh. What? No. Shit, Sam, no!”

“That was probably too much, huh? Really shouldn’t be pulling the ‘I know you’ card just now, you’re right. Sorry.”

A heavy thump followed as soon as the words were out of his mouth but Sam jumped more for how close it was than for how loud. When he twisted instinctually to make sure Bucky was okay he found the man right there at his back, less than two feet away, down on his knees.

“Don’t say you’re sorry,” Bucky pleaded. “I’m the one who’s an asshole here!”

“Nuh-uh, none of that. We’ve talked a hundred times about how your feelings are your own and you cannot make yourself carry the weight of what other people think-”

“But I never even said what my feelings are!”

Sam dropped his eyes and swallowed past a lump in his throat. “Yeah, uh, I don’t think I really need you to spell it out at this point. Pretty sure I got the gist.”

In the corner of his vision he could see Bucky covering his face with both hands. His ears picked up the sound of a ragged breath being drawn inwards. All the signs of Bucky gathering himself to express something that made him uncomfortable yet needed to be said. Which, honestly, did not up Sam’s expectations for the rest of this conversation but he would always do everything in his power to be a good friend for Bucky, to listen when that’s what he needed. This whole shitshow of a situation wouldn’t change that.

“You know I’m…not great…with emotions,” Bucky started and wasn’t that the understatement of the year. Socializing? Yeah, no problem. Small talk? Ace in the hole when he was relaxed enough. Expressing what he felt inside? He’d had easier times defusing bombs in high stakes situations.

“Don’t bother trying to polish it, man, just say what you need to say and let me worry about my own reactions.”

The hands dropped and Bucky sat back on his heels, dipping his head to one side in an effort to catch Sam’s eyes, refusing to speak again until their gazes met.

“Please believe me when I say I didn’t leave because you made me uncomfortable. The- you- Jesus. Sam, the idea of you loving me like that could never make me uncomfortable in a bad way.” He paused to let his own eyes stray with a low curse for how poorly the words were coming but soldiered on anyway. “When you said what you did I thought it was a joke. I left because I thought you’d said that as a joke, that those words meant nothing to you, and I couldn’t handle that.”

“I don’t understand,” Sam murmured. Bucky shuffled a little closer with a painfully earnest expression.

“Do you know the first thing I said when Sarah picked up the phone? I told her that you had just given me everything I wanted but that you didn’t mean it. She didn’t get it either until I told her what you said.”

Oh man, that’s hilarious! Fuck I love you.

The words had slid out of his subconscious and right between his lips before he had as much as half a chance to catch them and shove them back in to the tightly locked box where he usually kept such thoughts. In that single gossamer instant while the last syllables were still dancing across his tongue Sam had already been spinning out a frantic plan to play it off as something friends say. Friends say they love each other all the time! Maybe the two of them had never used those particular words but he could still play off his raw honesty as a different kind of affection. Or so he’d thought until he’d seen Bucky’s eyes widen and his spine go stiff. Watching him walk away had been nearly as painful as watching Riley fall. No one was dead but it’d still felt like dying because this time he’d known with absolute certainty that he himself was completely to blame for the loss.

For a few seconds that stretched out way too long, the two of them sat and stared at each other without saying anything else. Sam knew what he wanted Bucky’s words to mean. He also knew he could be misinterpreting them with wishful thinking and it was tempting to hope they could just hang suspended in this state of in between for the rest of their lives in case he was wrong. Bucky, however, did not seem inclined to let them.

“You get what I’m trying to say, right?” he asked quietly and Sam could only shrug.

“Not entirely. I mean, you could be saying a couple different things.”

“Really?” A little exasperation touched Bucky’s voice, eyes twitching like they wanted to roll. “I was pretty sure you couldn’t misinterpret that. Okay. Uh. Christ, you’re gonna make me come right out and say it, aren’t you?”

Sam huffed. “It would help.”

“I left because I thought you were saying you loved me as some kind of offhand comment and that hurt because I wanted you to mean it. Was that clear? Was that enough? Can I throw myself in the water and never come up for air now?”

Feeling like there was no air in his own lungs, Sam twisted to snap a hand out, taking a fistful of Bucky’s shirt. “You want…that?”

“What, to throw myself in the bayou? Yeah kind of. I mean, this is probably the most I’ve ever embarrassed myself in all my hundred years and you’re not really saying much so I’m starting to think maybe I heard a few things wrong on the phone-”

“Dear sweet lord, we are a pair. A pair of melodramatic adolescents is what we are.”

“Excuse you?”

“Excuse yourself!”

Caught up in the rush of being off base in the best possible way, Sam pulled their bodies together before either of them could say anything else to draw this out longer than they already had. So maybe he’d been a bit dramatic about everything. Maybe he’d read the situation entirely wrong. Whatever. Being right wasn’t always all it was cracked up to be.

As soon as their lips came crashing together nothing else mattered to him but sweet relief. Frank Sinatra started playing in his head for the second time that night only now they were flying to the moon together and Sam wondered if Bucky could taste the racing beat of his heart, the sheer adrenaline of impossible dreams coming true. He couldn’t help but think that the other man had been right earlier too. This was everything he wanted. Apparently everything they had both been wanting, even, which made it all the better.

Cool metal slipped beneath the hem of his shirt to trace along the skin just above his beltline before pressing sweet and firm against his lower back, pulling their bodies closer. Sam couldn’t think of a single reason he would want to protest that and so he let himself be dragged farther in to the haze. His own hand was still balled in the front of Bucky’s henley as if to let go now would shatter the moment, the other busily trying to get a grip in short brown curls. Aesthetically he definitely preferred this look but for a brief moment he yearned for that shoulder length cut he could have really gotten a fist in to. What he wouldn’t give to pull on it.

“Say it again,” Bucky told him between kisses. His voice rasped with want, breath panting between them, hardly able to keep himself away long enough to speak. “Say it again and- and mean it this time.”

“What, that I love you? ‘Course I fucking do. I’ve been in love with you for ages. Can’t decide if you’re the idiot for not seeing it or if I’m the idiot for not noticing you love me too.”

“Both. Definitely both.”

A short breath of laughter escaped him. Bucky’s lips moved down the line of his jaw to press against his throat, just a hint of teeth, and Sam was caught between a groan and a bubble of hysteria. He could hardly believe this was all real even as it was happening. Their lips met again and he must have let out some kind of sound in the end, though he couldn’t be bothered to care which one. Whatever it was, Bucky seemed to like it. Or so Sam guessed by the hand on his lower back twitching and pressing them just that little bit closer again like he couldn’t help himself.

The two of them might have spent the rest of the night out there at the end of the dock, kissing like they could only find air through each other, if not for the ratty wood underneath them and the splinter that jammed itself in the center of Sam’s palm when he tried to shift his weight. Startled curses spilled out of him when he pulled away to check his hand. Cool fingers cupped his own and Sam immediately fell quiet again, entranced with the frankly unnecessary level of concentration on Bucky’s face as he pulled the sliver out.

“We’re okay…right?” Bucky spoke to Sam’s palm, eyes resolutely downward and almost shy.

“Yeah,” Sam breathed. “Yeah, we’re good.”

“Okay. I’m glad. So you’re not…still mad?”

“At Sarah, yes, but not you. I know how you get. I know you didn’t mean any harm.”

Bucky took in a slow breath and let their hands rest together on his left knee. “I don’t think she meant any harm either. And, I mean, it turned out okay, right? This is- this is a good thing.”

Lingering doubt hung around him like a cloud and Sam absolutely couldn’t have that so before he answered he had to lean forward and steal another kiss, drawing it out in a way he hoped spoke louder than words about how much he agreed that this was absolutely a good thing. Only after dragging his teeth across Bucky’s lower lip and sitting back to admire the way those gorgeous blue eyes had glazed over did he take a breath and look for the words to explain.

“Don’t get me wrong, I am beyond thrilled with this right here”-Sam waved his free hand back and forth in the air between them-“but the ends don’t always justify the means, you know? If Sarah knew how we both felt then there’s a dozen nicer ways she could have gone about this than letting someone else listen in on what she knew damn well was a private conversation.”

“Boundaries?”

“Exactly, boundaries. I have every right to be pissed off at her. Won’t be forever but she hurt me with that little stunt and I have enough self-worth to make sure she fucking knows that.”

Nodding tentatively, Bucky traced the lines of Sam’s palm a few times until he’d worked himself up to just lacing their fingers together. He looked up with a tentative smile so endearing that Sam just had to lean in and kiss him again. His startled pleasure was somehow even cuter.

Then he ducked his head again to look up through his lashes and Sam felt like maybe he should say goodbye to his dignity now because he could already tell how badly he was going to be wrapped around this man’s finger. Even worse, Bucky was a smart guy. No way he wasn’t going to figure this out fast and take full advantage. Sam had to face it. He was never going to get the last cookie in any package for the rest of his life. Even worse: he didn’t mind.

“You know,” Bucky mused, cocking his head back towards where the Paul and Darlene bobbed sedately along with the rest of the boats. “All the times you got me to help fix her up, I got to know every inch of that craft.”

“I’d be worried about your observational skills if you hadn’t,” Sam teased. Where was this going?

“Mhm. So I happen to know there is a fairly comfortable bed in that cabin…”

“Why Bucky Barnes. I can’t believe you. Propositioning me on the first date?”

Even in the darkness he could see red flushing across Bucky’s cheeks but he was delighted to see a little embarrassment did nothing to deter the man. “Technically we haven’t even been on a first date yet, if we’re talking scandalous. Is that gonna stop you?”

Sam didn’t bother answering with his words. He was so high on the sudden rush of endorphins running through his system he wasn’t sure he’d be very coherent anyway if he tried. The two of them clambered up off the edge of the dock and stumbled towards the Wilson family boat with their hands still linked, feeling a lot like a pair of teenagers sneaking about and enjoying themselves all the more for it. Anything else that might have existed outside the little bubble of their newly discovered feelings faded away; the world could wait, they had both earned this moment to themselves a thousand times over.

Tomorrow Sam could be angry with his sister. Tomorrow he could be thoroughly embarrassed by his own dramatics. Tomorrow he and Bucky could gently tease each other for being as blind as they both had been about all of this.

Tonight they were nothing but happy that Sam had opened his big mouth to say something stupid.

#rae writes #sambucky #winterfalcon #sam wilson #bucky barnes #sarah wilson #fanfiction #hey look i finished something i was working on!

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