Chapter Text
After hundreds of hours of scheming and strategizing, Natasha finally calls to say it’s time to hit The Den.
She abandoned the plan to intercept the shipment, deciding instead to let the MC amass their product in peace while she quietly but decisively removed all their avenues of unloading it, trapping the motor club in an isolated farmhouse in the hills with a city’s worth of dope and no way to move it.
She doesn’t literally call, of course. Sam gets one text with a when and where to meet, and a second with only a kissing emoji and an hourglass. Both come from a restricted number that somehow disables his ability to respond.
They came a few days earlier than he expected, but as Sam ascends a serpentine road through a heavy fog in the woods, he starts to understand the urgency. The sun sits low and ineffectual on the horizon, setting a scene that the gang at the top of the hill should take as an obvious bad omen.
Sam fits his car into the line surrounding the building and blocking the road, leaves it idling when he gets out. There are at least eight cars already at the edge of dirt and dry grass, and all of their taillights diffuse into an ominous red glow that Sam can appreciate for its lack of subtlety.
There are more people filling the space between cars than Sam’s ever seen on a job in Deliverance. All of them clad in matte black, checking weapons and waiting idly in committed silence. It’s easily the most women Sam’s ever had the pleasure of raiding with, though the distinction is hard to make out in the pre-dawn light.
As the anticipation grows thick as the fog in the air around them, Sam checks his own holsters and takes stock. He knows Clint is tucked away in the tree canopy somewhere. He picked up a high powered rifle himself a week ago, and lost an entire afternoon “calibrating” it with Clint in the mountains.
Sam finds the shape of Bucky’s body easily despite the uniformity in dress. He looks good, his tactical gear clinging to muscles ready to be put to use. They share a passing nod and Sam makes himself look away, eager for this job to go well, to help ensure all their maneuvering isn’t wasted.
The Widows aren’t a gang. Natasha doesn’t have rivals, no specific group of adversaries she’s always moving on, no territory lines to confine her business or loyalties. There is no one type of person she looks to recruit, and staying in her good graces doesn’t promise a path to power.
Sam knows this does not stop her from making enemies, but it probably is why she has so many friends, why he’s here now, just one of many happy to fight behind her flag.
When their last is in position, Natasha leads them all through the grass and up the stoop of the wide, three story house with the casual air of a door-to-door vacuum salesman. Sam hasn’t clocked any activity in the windows, nothing on the roof. No lookouts, no patrols, just as overconfident and unprepared as their reputation reported.
Natasha puts her back to the wall next to the front door, and uses a nightstick to tap at the door and announce their arrival.
The door explodes off its hinges with shotgun fire, and Bucky is first over the threshold, wrestling the weapon away from its owner while deflecting bullets with his exposed metal arm.
Sam’s meant to ignore the ground floor assault and rush up the stairs with a handful of other Widows, to start flushing the building from top to bottom.
And he is.
He will. He’s on his way, but he is admittedly moving slow, transfixed with the way Natasha and Bucky move.
Watching them fight in tandem is easily the most distracted Sam’s ever been on a job. Their rhythm is mechanically precise but fluid, almost like they’re dancing, the choreography born of some past Sam’s not yet been made privy to.
Natasha does whatever it takes to get her opponents down, seeming to take delight in swiping feet and shattering knees, weaponizing her momentum and flexibility them to the ground for incapacitating blows. When she can’t get them down, she uses that same manipulation of her body weight to deliver them into Bucky’s deadly path.
It’s now – in the middle of the fray himself, working his way up the stairs behind a half dozen other Widows – that Sam realizes just how well earned the fear of her name is. It’s not all empty threats and sinister rumors, she is a force to behold, and fight you can only lose.
The MC fights back but they do it with desperation, a sloppy artlessness to their defense that might have made Sam feel bad if they weren’t so reckless in their defeat.
Too many of them fire blindly and swing blades while failing to flee.
Bucky takes on multiple assailants at a time, fights with a knife and an assault rifle and uses the close quarters to great advantage, shoving people into walls and using doorways for cover with an unstoppable sort of air.
What the motor club lacks in professionalism they make up for in audacity Stupid break in devotion and dedication bravery Stupid the ones that don’t flee tripping down stays and grabbing whatever they can in the way out stay and fight like hell. He saw Bucky break a sink against a guy’s face after he made the mistake of throwing Natasha down a hallway.
They’ve barely cleared the building, Sam’s only half sure the job is done before he’s looking for Bucky again, sprinting upstairs and down hallways until he finds him in a bathroom, wide eyed and breathing hard, blood splattered against his chest and smeared across his chin.
An intoxicating, unnamed feeling floods Sam’s chest when he catches Bucky’s shoulders soften with relief at the sight of Sam, a sort of mania when Bucky exhales on a quiet, “hi.”
Sam blames that for how hard he pushes him against the wall before kissing him.
Bucky groans into it, slipping his gun clumsily back into the holster at his thigh to free his hand. They’re everywhere, the broad heat of his palms and grabby fingers sinking into his muscles.
Sam sinks to his knees while violence rings out on the floors below, so desperate to blow him he nearly loses all his finesse. Bucky’s knees still buckle when he comes.
Bucky’s eyelids are low, his gaze heavy as he watches Sam get up. He wraps his arms around Sam’s waist, like they’re going to have a cuddle in the middle of a raid. Bucky pulls him in close, and a sniper bullet pierces the bathroom window, shatters the sink next to them. Bucky follows Sam’s gaze to the window and raises his middle finger, but they both take the hint.
Bucky presses a kiss to Sam’s mouth that’s heavy with promise for later, and they wordlessly agree to stagger their exits. The thing between them isn’t a secret, but it doesn’t need the scrutiny of outside attention, either.
Sam helps wrangle the few surrenders Natasha allows, and doesn’t catch sight of Bucky again until hours later.
The final post-job rendezvous is at the Widow’s biggest holding, a penthouse club in one of Stark’s buildings, and they’re celebrating before they even make it into the elevator.
Sam rides the wave of revelry for a while, rubbing and dancing and speculating wildly over who will inherit the MC house.
But he feels eyes on him the whole time, lets the weight of the glare guide him to an access stairwell, up the steps and onto a windy roof. Bucky pulls him into a corner where low couches are tucked into the wall, and makes good on his unspoken promises. With a metal hand around his dick and his soft tongue in his mouth, Sam burns off a different kind of adrenaline.
⁂
The sex is only made better by the other times they fall in sync.
Covering each other in a shootout, navigating an escape on Bucky’s bike, both of saying “it’s just a scratch,” when Scott worries over Sam’s taped ribs, Bucky mocking and Sam completely earnest.
It’s one of the best things in his life these days, and Sam does not want for good things.
The moment he thinks it, an idle, passing, I could get used to this nothing of a thought, Bucky disappears.
He doesn’t do anything so obvious as dissolve into mysterious grey particles, or sneak out of bed for milk.
It’s worse.
Sam lands a helicopter in the clearing half a mile from Natasha’s front door, and Bucky isn’t there to greet him.
When Sam takes a job with Joaquín to seize a deposit truck to bail one of his garage’s customers out of a sticky situation, they only bring Yelena and Karli as their muscle.
Rhodey says he won’t take a business call with his sister without some kind of incentive, so Sam solicits Scott’s help intercepting a prize winning Audi before it can make it to auction. If Bucky is aware of the job, he doesn’t make himself known. Not in the freight train, or the drop off, or the hundreds of miles of chase in between.
It’s about then that Sam starts to make excuses.
Bucky probably wouldn’t like doing favors for Shield top brass. All the times they showed up for each other was just a coincidence that he had all that time to show up for Sam’s fun little jobs anyway.
He’s Natasha’s right hand, he’s probably got things to do, people to kill.
It’s not like Sam misses him; he just got a little too used to having him around.
It’s all good, though. He’s fine. It doesn’t matter.
But, also, would it kill the guy to just say s omething ? Sending a text or getting a note to Sam would be the polite thing to do, the courteous thing. If he’d known he was fucking someone so rude he might have called it off weeks ago.
Of course it is possible that Sam was the one that was rude. That he maybe did something or said something that made Bucky want to keep his distance. They really don’t know each other that well at all. Awkward dinners and mutual friends does not a partnership make.
Sam plays their last interactions over and over in his head, but as with all things between them, it’s a blur of sweat and heat and well earned release.
Mostly.
Still, was none of that worth just one message? A single response to Sam’s increasingly embarrassing string of texts?
Bucky had nothing to say to the idly curious questions, the passive aggressive comments? Didn’t care at all to even react to the messages that were transparently worried?
Bucky should at least help him out, tell Sam he’s alive so he can stop looking like a dickhead.
Sam doesn’t give a shit about that, really. It’s not his fault he cares about the guy. Sam cares about people, whatever.
Every time they hooked up was unplanned, an expected surprise, and if a couple times they went out after a job to catch a drink and flirt aimlessly until one of them said too much…
Well, obviously it didn’t mean anything. That’s a good thing. Uncomplicated, low-commitment. Casual. That was all Sam needed, and he got more than he could have wanted.
And that’s probably where he fucked up. He’s been chasing what he wants, what was good at the time. He’s been predictable, an easy mark.
It’s not like Sam hasn’t thought about it, once or twice. Asked himself what was in this for Bucky, why he kept showing up, being useful, available, friendly.
Why Bucky was waiting by his car to help when they hadn’t known each other a day. Why Natasha put them on that first job in the first place, where Sam fits into her insidious web of connections and influence. How things were so easy with Bucky, from the pliant, greedy way he is during sex to the quiet amusement he used to slip in with Sam’s friends.
It doesn’t take Bucky disappearing on him for Sam to think, what were they after?
Sam racks his brain for days, trying to figure out what access or information he’s given Bucky that could have possibly been worth such a long con. He’d been careful enough around Natasha, and Misty, and everyone with motives and agendas in town, he just hadn’t thought Bucky was one of them.
Natasha already knows everyone Sam knows, and has better ties to Shield. Most of the gang leadership is involved with someone with allegiance to the Widows. He’s heard even the police – state sanctioned gang that they are – have some strange deference to the Widows that few can explain.
On particularly bad days, Sam has nightmares of Bucky being a CI, of falling so easily for a honeypot that ruins his entire life and puts his family at risk. In those dreams he goes home to find not only the Wilson operation infiltrated and turned over to someone else, but Sarah won’t talk to him, disowns him completely, or has him rightfully killed for being so stupid.
He spends the entirety of his morning jogs – going longer and farther every time –trying to figure out how to ask Sarah if she’s heard anything, if there’s anything he should be worried about.
But by breakfast Sam’s always outrun the shadow of potential betrayal, and remembers one, he doesn’t know anything valuable about the way Sarah operates the business, and two, he and Bucky never really talked about a goddamned thing.
By week three he’s pissed over his own paranoia, and by the time it’s coming up on a month since he last spoke to Bucky, his anger cracks open around something markedly worse.
They’d found a rhythm during those jobs, and now Sam feels out of sync with himself without Bucky around, without Bucky to look forward to, and the softest, most idiotic parts of him suggest he just misses Bucky, that he’s worried about him.
Which, no.
Sam’s gotten overly intimate with all the power and agility of that left arm. The guy can take care of himself.
And obviously Bucky’s just found something or someone he likes more than Sam.
That’s fine. It’s great! Congratulations to them both.
It’s not until Joaquín shows up at his house – out of the blue and fed up with Sam’s distracted texts – that he realizes he hasn’t seen anyone in days.
Joaquín tries, but he doesn’t quite hold back the disappointment and concern on his face when Sam pulls open his front door.
“Oh, estás vivo ! So, you are good,” Joaquín says accusingly, bare arms crossed over his sculpted chest, “you’ve just been avoiding me.”
“I’m not,” Sam sighs.
“I was kidding,” he says with a smile, “but now the guilt in your voice is making me feel a type of way.”
“Look,” Sam says, deflating immediately. If it were anyone else he’d be able to keep his voice even, devoid of guilt, or embarrassment, or anything else. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate the house call, but —”
“It’s not a house call,” Joaquín interrupts, just as Sam clocks his fresh haircut and soft curls, the glittering chain laid perfectly below his collarbone, and his white t-shirt is so thin and clinging, he may as well not be wearing it. “We’re going out.”
Sam opens his mouth to turn him down. It feels wrong to even consider. He’s probably not going to be any fun, and he’d hate to spoil someone else’s good time with his bullshit.
“I haven’t seen you in weeks,” Joaquín presses on before Sam can reply. “You owe me dinner at least, don’t you think? Dinner, and an explanation. If you really don’t wanna come out after, we’ll take you back here.”
It’s unfair, all his earnestness. It weasels into Sam like a knife through his ribs, almost enough to make him miss an important detail.
“Who the hell is ‘we’?” Sam asks.
Joaquín’s smile falters, and he pauses to scratch at the back of his neck. “Karli’s in the car. She was worried about you, too.”
“Karli doesn’t like me,” Sam corrects.
“Aw, she does,” Joaquín replies with a half glance back at his car idling in the driveway. “She just has a thing about money, and, you know…”
Sam gives him a look. “What does that have to do with me?”
Joaquín groans, “she doesn’t like anyone, okay?”
“She likes you,” Sam corrects.
“I’m a likeable guy.” Joaquín grins a little sharper, steps farther into Sam’s space until he can smell the warm amber and spice of his cologne.
Sam has to concede the point, gives him an exasperated eye roll, but can’t hold back his smile.
“ Te gusto tambien, papi ,” he says, sweet and seductive in a way that feels just for Sam even though they both know it is not. “Come out with us, come on. What do I have to do? You want me to beg?”
Sam narrows his gaze. As pretty a sight as that may be, they both know it won’t be necessary, and Sam still feels too off-kilter to entertain it.
“I wouldn’t make you do that,” Sam says back with a grin. “Just let me change.”
“Yes!” Joaquín says, pecking a kiss to Sam’s cheek. “I’ll be in the car, take your time, okay?”
Sam does.
Takes his time getting his head right so he can go out and let off some steam. He can move on, always has to keep moving on.
He doesn’t remember when he started wearing them again, but he puts on Riley’s old gloves and takes the comfort they bring, despite it being slightly diminished. Sam charges his phone, makes sure it’s on loud. Just in case.
He should probably give Sarah a call, anyway.