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English
Series:
Part 1 of Friends Don't
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Published:
2023-03-05
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1,852
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1/1
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Friends Don't Casually Undress Each Other

Summary:

No, Bucky was all kinds of comfortable touching Sam; and Sam was all kinds of comfortable letting him. Sarah could not imagine any other scenario where the moody former assassin would take it upon himself to invade someone’s personal space and start yanking off their clothes. And she couldn’t imagine Sam just standing there taking it from anyone else.

That level of comfort with one another didn’t speak volumes, it damn well screeched it!

Notes:

The song "Friends Don't" by Maddie & Tae is one of my go-to SamBucky songs, so I decided to make a fic (and possibly an entire series) based around it and how Sam and Bucky do all these things that show they're more than just friends without even realizing it. Fun fact, I looked up more than one online list of 'how to tell if you're more than just friends' and Sam and Bucky checked so many boxes that I cackled.

Work Text:

Sarah heard them bickering before they even made it through the front door, giving her head a fond but exasperated shake at the mixture of mumbling and grumbling that seemed to underscore Sam and Bucky’s every communication. Lately…lately though…there had been a shift. She’d noticed it. She was pretty sure everyone from her boys all the way up to Colonel Rhodes had noticed it. Beneath all that bickering lay something that suspiciously felt like banter. And not just the wisecracking, ribbing kind. No…there were definitely elements of eyelash batting, hair twirling, schoolyard crushing in all that verbal wordplay.

 

“Okay, off with it.” Bucky’s gruff voice reached her ears, making her pause as she rounded the corner. Torn between curiosity and apprehension, she held off on making her presence known. “Lemme see.”

 

“What do you mean, let you see? I’m not gonna let you see anything, Man.”

 

“Just take the shirt off.”

 

“Come rollin’ in here, tellin’ me I gotta-”

 

“You’re insufferable.”

 

“You’re insufferable.”

 

“Yeah, well you’re more insufferable.”

 

“You’re most insufferable. You know what you’ll find if you open one of them old school dictionaries right there next to the word insufferable? I’ll tell you-”

 

“Yeah, a picture of you with your name listed as a freaking synonym, now off with it Samuel !”

 

“I told you I’m fine, James .”

 

Calling each other Samuel and James–another recent development that paired nicely with the charged banter they had going. On the surface, it seemed entirely innocent–except for the glaring fact that nobody else really called either of them by their full first names. Sure friends gave each other nicknames. She called Jennifer, Jenn…Jenn sometimes called her Sar…that wasn’t so odd. But you couldn’t really classify full names as nicknames in Sarah’s opinion, especially not with the warmth these two laced in their tones at every usage. No, Sam and Bucky were the damn nicknames. And if Sam and Bucky were the damn nicknames, that left Samuel and James as…well…basically pet names.

 

Friends don't give each other pet names , Sarah thought to herself, not for the first time. But if she called her brother out on it, he’d just insist he was trying to get under Bucky’s skin–which was probably true. But she wasn’t convinced he wasn’t trying to get under Bucky’s covers as well.

 

“What the hell, c’mon?” Her brother sounded grouchy, so she hazarded a peek around the corner, her mouth dropping open at the sight of Bucky expertly tugging at the buttons of the neatly pressed dress shirt Sam had chosen to wear for his stint as guest speaker at Westgate High’s special assembly that afternoon. Sam made a show of swatting at Bucky’s reaching fingers. Not enough to do any damage. Definitely not enough to stop him either.

 

Hmm. Curious indeed.

 

“I said lemme see.” Bucky in mother hen mode was not to be argued with, a lesson every Wilson had learnt at least once since the supersoldier followed Sam home. When Sarah came down with strep, Bucky was there with tea and honey. When Cass came home bleeding after roughhousing with friends, Bucky appeared with a poultice. When AJ broke his glasses, Bucky had taken one look at those tear stained cheeks and promised to fix them as good as new. And Sam…well, if Sam so much as showed signs of a paper cut, Bucky was by his side with a bandaid and a tube of antiseptic before the other man even managed to muffle a curse.

 

Sarah had seen Bucky slip into this caregiver role enough to realize that Sam must have gotten injured somewhere between the high school dismissal bell and home, but that still didn’t really explain why Bucky was undressing him in the living room, while Sam–a grown ass man capable of slapping on his own band-aid–stood there blowing all kinds of smoke, passively letting him. 

 

Friends don’t do that, either . 

 

No, Bucky was all kinds of comfortable touching Sam; and Sam was all kinds of comfortable letting him. Sarah could not imagine any other scenario where the moody former assassin would take it upon himself to invade someone’s personal space and start yanking off their clothes. And she couldn’t imagine Sam just standing there taking it from anyone else.

 

That level of comfort with one another didn’t speak volumes, it damn well screeched it!

 

Mmm hmm . 

 

Just friends? Those two? That was some next level bullshit, right there.

 

“C’mon Buck, I said it was fine.”

 

“Yeah well, all that wincing says otherwise. You coulda cracked something.”

 

“Maybe all that wincing was due to my pride more than my ribs.”

 

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

 

Sam had already shrugged out of the button down shirt, tossing it on the sofa. To Sarah’s amazement, Bucky didn’t stop there. Nope. He went for the white cotton undershirt next. “Up,” he instructed. Sam lifted his arms with a slight grimace as Bucky began to gently shimmy it up Sam’s torso. Sarah was just glad whatever injury he’d acquired wasn’t on his damn thigh. Or his hip. Or, oh shit, his-

 

“Why is Bucky copping a feel of Uncle Sam in the living room?” AJ’s whispered question made her nearly jump out of her skin. When had he come in? Not to mention… 

 

 “What did you just say?!”

 

“Why is Bucky copping a feel of Uncle Sam in the living room?” AJ asked again with all the innocence in the world.

 

“How do you even know-” she didn’t get to complete the thought because Cass was suddenly on her other side, loudly chomping a carrot. Where did these kids keep coming from when she was trying to secretly observe her brother and his partner in their natural dumbass habitat?

 

“Does this mean we can call him Uncle Bucky now?” Cass asked as he chewed. At least he was eating something healthy, so Sarah decided to call it a win.

 

“No, you can’t …” Sarah let the sentence trail off as she watched Bucky pull Sam’s tank top completely over his head. And really, she had no idea what sort of injury this was, but there obviously wasn’t any blood or any need for all this fuss. Fuck it, they’d brought this on themselves. “Sure, why not?” Maybe giving Bucky a title would move those two oblivious idiots closer to realizing what was painfully obvious to everyone who came within twelve feet of them. “Now go out and play or something.” She didn’t have to shoo them all that much to get them to go. 

 

She turned back to the idiots.

 

Bucky had his hands on Sam’s ribs and was murmuring soft questions like “Does this hurt?” “Here?” “What about this?” And there Sam stood, tilting into the touch. 

 

She rolled her eyes as Bucky gave a firm nod. “Just bruised. I’ll go get you an ice pack.”

 

“Thanks Buck.”

 

Bucky turned around, smiling when he spotted her. She wasn’t fool enough to think he hadn’t known she was there the entire time, hadn’t heard the boys and their observations; but Bucky was exceedingly good at brushing things off, rolling with the punches, and not questioning things. “Hi Sarah.”

 

“Afternoon Bucky. What did my idiot brother do this time?”

 

“Hey, I’m right here,” Sam groused.

 

“I said what I said. Didn’t try to hide it,” Sarah shot right back. She knew her brother. The same fool who had strapped on a pair of wings to soar through the sky…had left his neat little life to follow Captain America…to chase after a brainwashed assassin who’d tried to kill him…who’d stared down the barrel of more than one loaded gun and urged the perpetrator to do better…

 

Look, she loved Sam with her whole heart. But self-preservation wasn’t his strong suit. That’s why she was grateful he had Bucky. Sam wasn’t gonna watch his own back…but he’d watch Bucky’s. And he’d let Bucky watch his.

 

“After his speech, we passed by the football players running some drills.”

 

“Oh hell.”

 

“I was a star running back in high school-” Sam started.

 

“In high school,” Bucky and Sarah admonished at the same time. They shared a grin. 

 

“You just had to join in, didn’t you?” Sarah scolded.

 

“Kids weren’t built that big when I played,” Sam huffed.

 

“Apparently he should have worn the suit,” Bucky muttered.

 

“Apparently he should have worn the suit,” Sam mimicked in a high-pitched voice as Bucky disappeared to find ice.

 

“You’re shirtless,” Sarah started. “Why are you shirtless in my living room?”

 

“He’s getting me some ice.”

 

“That’s not what I asked.”

 

“I’m bruised.”

 

“So he had to completely strip you of two shirts to tell you it was bruised and you need an ice pack? Something I could have figured out? Something you could have figured out and done your damn self? Mmm hmm. Okay then.”

 

“I know what you’re thinking.”

 

“Do  you really? Because I really wanna hear you explain away your BFF casually feeling you up in my family room.”

 

“Oh hell Sarah, he didn’t casually do any thing-”

 

“You’re right. He seemed pretty invested in it, actually.”

 

“Would you stop?”

 

“Probably not, but you can try me.”

 

“Look, we just…we go on a lot of missions, all right? And we have to do a lot of patching each other up. He’s just used to taking my shirt off and stitching me up, that’s all.”

 

“So let me get this straight–telling me that a former assassin is just comfortable putting his hands all over you because he does it all the time is somehow supposed to convince me that this isn’t what it looks like? Are you even trying anymore?”

 

“Why do I even bother? You’re just gonna hafta trust me when I say this is nothing. We’re just friends, that’s all.”

 

“Hey Sarah,” Bucky called from the kitchen. “It alright if I wrap this bag of ice up in a dish towel? The only one in the drawer is the embroidered one.” That one had been a wedding gift. Sarah smiled a little wistfully to herself, the ache of missing her husband always there. Somehow it seemed fitting for Bucky to be fussing over Sam with it now. They were basically husbands, after all. “I don’t want it to be too cold for him.”

 

Sarah gave Sam a smug look as she answered. “That’s perfectly fine, Bucky. Thanks for asking though. We wouldn’t want Sam to be uncomfortable.”

 

“He’s already got a nasty bruise,” Bucky agreed, missing the sarcasm.

 

“Shut-up,” Sam hissed at her before she could open her mouth.

 

“I didn’t even say anything.”

 

“You didn’t have to. Your look says it all.”

 

“Yeah, sometimes they do, don’t they? Speaking of which, the way that boy looks at you-”

 

“I don’t have time for this,” Sam grumbled as he moved past her to go find Bucky.

 

She reached for his shirt, tossing it at his head. “At least put on a shirt. Don’t nobody wanna see all that ‘round here. ‘ Cept that man in the kitchen.”

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