Chapter Text
You might see something weird in the next few days, Steve had said, in his stupid cryptic Old Man Steve way.
Something weird sounded like it could be a package, maybe, some loose ends Bucky had to take care of, because it turns out there were a hell of a lot of loose ends when you decide to age about eighty years and then fuck off to God-knows-where.
Something weird should not entail a stranger materializing in Bucky’s room in the middle of the night, but there he was, looking unfairly offended that Bucky had thrown a knife at him.
Through him, actually, the knife sinking into the wall behind the stranger’s head.
“Hell no,” Bucky muttered, clicking the safety off his gun and eyeing the intruder warily.
“Wait!” the weird incorporeal guy yelped, holding up his hands. He looked to be in his late twenties, with dark blond hair. He had on fatigues, which was a little strange but not nearly as strange as being impervious to thrown knives and faintly glowing around the edges. “Sorry! Steve told me you would be expecting me!”
“Steve,” Bucky said, not lowering his gun, “is an asshole.”
The guy grinned. “He kind of is, isn’t he? Sorry for scaring you. Do you want to turn the light on or something…? I feel like we should start over.”
Bucky had yet to buy a lamp, or a table or bed for that matter, and the light switch was behind the guy, so he was inclined to be in the dark for a little longer. “You did not scare me,” he snapped. “I’ve seen some weird shit, okay? Random guys appearing in my room don’t scare me. Now, if you’re gonna fucking try something, you should be the one scared, you understand? I swear to God I will find out your freaky powers and carve you to pieces. It’s been a long week, so don’t play with me.”
He blinked. “Wow,” he said. “Okay. Great start. I think that’s the most I’ve ever heard you speak at once.”
So he was a stalker, too. Great. Bucky sighed. “Explain.”
The stranger gave the knife in the wall a pointed look. “So you aren’t going to shoot me? I mean, it won’t hurt me, but I can’t say the same about this poor building.”
Bucky gritted his teeth. “I said, explain.”
“Alright,” he said, smiling again. He held out his hand even though he was across the room and presumably not solid. “Hi. My name is Riley. I’m Sam’s dead best friend.”
Bucky stared at him.
“Nice to meet you, Riley! I’m Bucky, Sam’s alive best friend!” That line came from right next to Bucky’s ear, causing him to jump about ten feet in the air, but the intruder who could apparently teleport was already back across the room. “Wow, what a coincidence! We’re all Sam’s friends! The Sam Wilson fan club is growing so fast!”
“What the fuck,” Bucky said flatly.
“Sorry,” the guy — Riley, he supposed — said. “I forgot you’re, like, one hundred. I don’t want to give you a heart attack or anything.”
His brain was still several lines behind. “I am not Sam’s best friend.”
“That’s what you got out of that?”
“I’m getting there. You’re Riley.”
Riley preened a little. “You’ve heard about me?”
“No. That would require me and Sam talking. We don’t talk, okay? If we did, he might be able to tell me what the hell is going on, because you’re doing a horrible job explaining.”
He frowned. “Do you want to go in the kitchen and turn a light on or something? I feel like the whole standing here with a gun in the dark bedroom thing isn’t doing wonders for your first impression of me.”
Bucky sighed. “Fine. Whatever. Lead the way.”
Riley looked a little helplessly at the closed door. “I can’t— Steve always— nevermind.” He sighed and disappeared.
Jesus Christ. Maybe he was going crazy. But when he walked into the main room and turned on the light, there was the ghost, sitting on the kitchen counter. “Steve always opened the door for you, is that what you were saying?”
He looked a little put out, swinging his legs into the cabinet doors. “I feel like it’s only polite. You know, as the alive one.”
“You seem to be perfectly able to interact with things while you’re sitting there banging up my new counter.”
“It’s complicated. Grabbing a doorknob and twisting it and pushing a door — that’s a lot, you know? This— nevermind,” he said again. “Where were we? I was trying to introduce myself, wasn’t I?”
Bucky gave him a wide berth as he retrieved a glass from the cabinet, filling it to the top with whiskey and knocking it back. Riley eyed him a little jealously. “Sorry,” he said sweetly. “I forgot my hosting manners. Can I get you something to drink?”
“You said Steve was the asshole.”
“Yeah, well, not warning a guy that a ghost is going to appear in his apartment in the middle of the night is an asshole move. Being the one to actually appear in the middle of the night is also an asshole move.”
Riley frowned. “This isn’t going well.”
“Nope.”
“Can I just try to start over and explain? Please?”
Bucky tipped the glass towards him in acknowledgement.
“Okay,” Riley said, seeming to take a moment to gather his thoughts. “Okay. I don’t do much socializing anymore, can you tell?”
“I had no idea,” he said dryly.
“Yeah, okay. So I’m sorry for appearing unannounced. Maybe I should’ve tried to ring the doorbell or something, I don’t know. The truth is, time is kind of weird for me…” The man ran his fingers through his hair, frowning. He looked startlingly real, for a supposed ghost. “Places are weird too, really. Anyway, yeah, so, again, my name is Riley. I was Sam’s friend in the Air Force. I was one of the guys in the Falcon program, you know, with the wings? I don’t know how much he’s told you about that. But you can fact check me, ask him, find our pictures, whatever. Just, side note, don’t tell him I’m here. Obviously.”
“Why not?”
“First of all, he’ll think you’ve gone insane.”
“Wait,” Bucky frowned, setting his glass down. “You’re telling me he has no idea about this whole ghost thing?”
Riley looked a little guilty at that. “No. Which, okay, makes me sound like a terrible friend, but if you had seen him right after I died, you would understand, okay? Sorry, I’m getting ahead again. So, we were in pararescue together, until I died a horrible fiery death, not fun to talk about at all, so I won’t, but I will say it seems important to mention the last thing I thought was, ‘oh my God, what’s going to happen to Sam?’
“So I died, but I knew I needed to make sure Sam was okay, so I sort of…made myself stick around, I guess? Avoided going into the light, or whatever. Except I’ve never been able to convince myself Sam really was okay, so I’ve just been sticking around for the last fifteen years.”
“Okay,” Bucky said slowly. “So you started haunting Steve?”
“Steve didn’t know Sam when I died, and it took me a while to figure out the whole ghost thing. And I did try to talk to him, I really did, but it didn’t go well at all. He kept apologizing, and I think he thought I was a hallucinatory manifestation of his guilt, or something, and I just one hundred percent made things worse.” Riley shuddered and said firmly, “I won’t do that to him again. I’d rather wander around forever than do that to him.”
“Okay,” Bucky said, if only to slow down the anxious rambling. “I won’t tell him, alright?”
“Thanks,” he said with a weak smile. “Anyway, then I tried Sarah, Sam’s sister, but I think I freaked her out too and she ended up using what her grandmama taught her to cleanse the entire house, which was not fun, so I was lost for a little while.”
“So there is a way to get rid of you,” he said. “What is it, sage or something?”
Riley paled. “Please don’t. It actually hurts a lot.”
“I was joking,” Bucky said, only partly a lie. “Continue.”
“Eventually I found Sam again, working at the VA in Washington, and he seemed fine but not really great, and then he met Steve, which, woah, Captain America! And then he and Steve became friends, and I thought, this guy seems pretty cool, and he’s literally Captain America, so what if I recruit him to my cause?”
“Your cause being, what, Operation: Make Sam Happy?”
He beamed. “Exactly! So then Steve and I became friends, and I tagged along while he and Sam and Nat were on the run, and then obviously the whole Thanos thing…that was awful, let’s not talk about that. And then Steve told me he was leaving and that I should talk to you and, you know…get you on board.”
Bucky wasn’t sure he wanted to be recruited. “You’re telling me, in the fifteen years you’ve been dead, you’ve never been convinced Sam would be okay? Don’t you want to go to whatever is next?”
Riley deflated a little. “Of course I do. I want to move on. But, no, I mean…I think he got close, with Steve and Natasha, but…”
“But they’re gone,” he finished. “What makes you think I can help with that?”
“You’re Sam’s best friend.”
“I’m definitely not.”
“You definitely are! You had the same friends, those friends are gone, you’ve both been through the same freaky traumatic event, and, okay, your phone has lit up a couple times during this conversation with texts from him. He’s reaching out!”
“He’s reaching out,” Bucky snapped, “because somehow he got it in his head that I’m his responsibility since Steve’s gone. I came with the shield, or something. Not because we’re friends.”
“He’s reaching out,” Riley countered, “because he needs a friend right now. You should talk to him.”
“In no way does he need me.”
“That is just so unbelievably wrong.”
“Okay,” Bucky said, setting down the glass with more force than was strictly necessary. Riley twitched, such a human response it almost made him laugh. This was clearly some sort of hallucination; he was not getting lectured by the ghost of Sam Wilson’s friend. “I’ll consider it if it’ll get you off my back. Can I go to sleep now?”
He raised his hands. “Consider your back Riley-free. Good night.”
“Good night,” he muttered, before he could be reminded yet again of how ridiculous the entire charade was.
It seemed more like a strange dream than anything in the light of day, especially when he went into the kitchen the next morning to see his counter ghost-free. But then he did some digging — he wasn’t going to ask Sam about it, obviously, but he could dust off his spy skills just fine and find some files — and, sure enough, Sam flew with someone who was a spitting image of the ghost. Died fifteen years ago, on a mission. And unless Bucky somehow knew about that mission subconsciously (he swallowed the sudden fear that he could have been the one to kill Sam’s partner), how could he have constructed that?
Strange shit happened to him all the time, didn’t it? This certainly wouldn’t be the strangest. And Steve had warned him something would pop up, though specifics would’ve been nice.
“I was really hoping you’d get some furniture today,” a voice piped up.
Bucky startled. “Jesus Christ, can you make a little noise next time? And does it really have to be after dark?”
Last night’s companion was sitting on the kitchen counter again, looking around the apartment with a judgemental air. “It’s easier at night. Seriously, do you just sit on the floor all day?”
“I have things to do,” Bucky said defensively. “Picking out and buying and setting up furniture takes time.”
“More like it takes committing to living here for a little bit, and the desire to actually do something nice for yourself and put the time in to make yourself comfortable.”
“Great, my ghost is psychoanalyzing me.”
“Here’s an idea,” Riley said, sliding off the counter and onto the floor silently. “You call Sam, set up a furniture buying and setting-up date. It’s more fun that way.”
“A date?” Bucky repeated, brain snagging on the word.
“A friend date,” he amended quickly. “Or, I mean. Whatever. I didn’t say anything. Just that it’s easier with two.”
“No.”
“You didn’t text him today, did you?”
“No.”
“You’re impossible.”
“Yup.”
Having a ghost wasn’t so bad, most of the time. Riley knew how to talk, and talk, and talk, which was nice at night. Bucky did a little bit of talking, too, but mostly listened, the cadence of his voice usually lulling him into a halfway-decent rest.
Sometimes he even forgot why Riley was there at all; he seemed to eventually accept that bugging Bucky about reaching out had the opposite intended effect and dropped it.
That is, until he turned on the TV one day and saw some government propaganda piece accepting the shield. Steve’s shield. That he had given to Sam.
“You should talk to him.”
That was Riley — he never showed up during the day, Bucky noted, and it could just be his imagination, but he looked more faded in the light. “That’s the plan,” he snapped. “Obviously.”
“I mean…” he faltered. “Not like this. Just think for a minute.”
“What is there to think about?” Bucky demanded. “That— that is what’s left of Steve. And Sam gave it up. Trusted the government with it.”
“Hear him out,” Riley said, and it sounded like a plea. “You don’t understand.”
“Oh, I understand plenty. Now stay the hell out of my way.”
Bucky felt very, very old.
Munich was a mess, obviously. Sam was just as stubborn and infuriating as always — why Riley could have possibly thought Sam could be considered his “best friend” was beyond him, though admittedly there was little competition at the moment. The Captain America knockoff didn’t help matters, just as smug and self-righteous as he had looked on TV.
Baltimore wasn’t any better. He told himself there had never been a good chance to tell Sam about Bradley, but that wasn’t exactly true, was it? He was starting to realize he may have been wrong about a lot of things, actually, but there wasn’t exactly time to work through it when there were an inordinate amount of jumped-up supersoldier teenagers running around and he had an international criminal to break out of prison. And of course said criminal was halfway across the world and somehow even more frustrating than Sam. He was really starting to wish the serum took care of jet lag.
It was best not to think too hard about Madripoor. Or if he did think about it, better to dwell on how unfairly good Sam had looked in that awful costume, not how easy it was to slip back into the Winter Soldier persona or how it felt when Zemo touched him like he was a precious object.
Then it was back to Europe (time was really starting to feel like a made-up construct at that point), saying he’s not my partner and trying to convince himself it was true. Seeing blood on the shield, Sam’s shield. Seeing blood on Sam after getting their asses moderately kicked.
So yeah. Old.
The only bright side was that he didn’t have a little birdie in his ear the whole time complaining about whatever new thing Bucky was apparently doing wrong.
In fact, he was beginning to wonder if the whole annoying ghost thing was just a figment of his imagination, a weirdly drawn-out hallucination that disappeared when he actually went out and interacted with society. Which was perfectly fine with Bucky. They weren’t friends, just like he and Sam weren’t friends, and he was glad to miss the snarky commentary when he asked Shuri about a new suit and wings.
Until Sarah Wilson’s house went quiet, and Bucky settled in on the couch, and the bane of his existence flickered into view.
“What the fuck,” Bucky hissed.
Riley tilted his head innocently. “What?”
“I thought,” he fought to keep his voice at a whisper, waving his hands to indicate the house, “that this place was cleansed! No ghosts allowed!”
He shrugged. “It’s been years. I like to pop by every once in a while, you know, check on my nephews and such.”
“That’s creepy.”
“It’s not creepy!”
“It’s basically stalking.”
“What’s stalking is how you found out where Sam’s sister lives. At least I’ve been here before.”
Bucky rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Is there a reason for this visit?”
Riley averted his eyes. Bucky didn’t know how this kid was when he was alive, but ghost-Riley had a horrible poker face, getting all cagey and not-so-subtly defecting when asked a direct question he didn’t really want to answer. “Do I need a reason?”
“Considering the house is asleep and I want to join them, and also considering I haven’t heard anything from you since I went to confront Sam, yes, you sort of do.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Like I said. Checking in.”
“Uh huh,” Bucky said doubtfully, leaning back down to get comfortable and closing his eyes. “Well. I have been checked.”
“I was watching, a little bit,” Riley said haltingly. “You and Sam.”
“Again, creepy.”
“You two make a good team.”
Bucky sighed. “No, we do not.”
“You do!” he insisted. Another beat of hesitation. “I saw you in Madripoor.”
He forced himself not to stiffen, not to show any outward reaction. “Of course you did.”
“Would you look at me?”
Bucky cracked open an eye. Riley looked painfully earnest, perched on the other end of the couch. He closed it again. “We’re not talking about Madripoor.”
“Sorry. It’s just…are you okay?”
“Fine,” he said stiffly. “Seriously. Leave it.”
He counted his breaths, painfully aware of Riley’s concerned gaze, but when he got to a hundred and opened his eyes again, the ghost was gone.
The next time Bucky saw him, it was two weeks after the Flagsmashers.
Bucky had been trying to keep busy and pretend like he didn’t notice the silence in his apartment and the silence on his cell phone.
It was such a stark contrast to Sam’s daily texts after Steve left. But that was fair, wasn’t it? He had never responded anyway. Why would Sam keep reaching out if Bucky wasn’t going to answer?
He would’ve texted back, though, now that they were talking. He wasn’t sure when in the chaos he had started to genuinely enjoy Sam’s company, but he felt his absence sharply.
Well. He could always text first. The whole issue was so juvenile, after all. He should just ask him to lunch, or something, like an actual adult. But driving four hours for lunch? Sam would think that was ridiculous, wouldn’t he? Besides, he was probably busy — that’s why he hadn’t texted. Being Captain America tended to have that effect.
That was what he was agonizing over when Riley appeared in his apartment. Which was a little strange, because Bucky figured maybe he had been a little too rude the last couple times they had talked and thought maybe the ghost had found someone who was actually close to Sam and could help out. It was also about five in the afternoon, hours away from sunset.
“Hey,” Bucky said, a bit cautiously — he wasn’t trying to burn bridges, it just tended to happen naturally.
“I need your help,” Riley said without preamble.
“Okay…?”
“It’s Sam.”
“I figured, but seriously, it hasn’t been that long since I saw him. I’m not ignoring him or anything,” Bucky said, feeling a little defensive. “And can we circle back on to why you think it’s my job to ensure his happiness, anyway?”
“I’m not—“ Riley broke off. He was pacing, now. “He’s sick.”
“He’s sick,” he repeated. “Like, a cold?”
“I don’t know!” His voice had risen a fraction. “I’m dead, Bucky! I don’t get sick!”
“You were alive for— never mind,” Bucky said. It wasn’t worth it. “How do you even know he’s sick, anyway? Do you watch him sleep?”
“Can we talk about this later?” Riley’s voice was strained.
“Okay, okay, let me get my keys. Should I, like, go to CVS? Get soup? How does this work?”
The questions clearly did not help his anxiety. “I thought you would know! Steve said you did this sort of stuff all the time.”
“Yeah, in, like, 1935.” Which consisted of mostly supplying damp wash cloths to cool him off and forcing him to drink water. One medical book he had found in the library recommended bloodletting for pneumonia — he was pretty sure that was outdated now.
Whatever. He was a smart capable guy with access to the Internet. Besides, more than likely he would show off and Sam would be over whatever 24-hour-bug he had and telling him to fuck off.
Bucky ended up getting chicken soup and Tylenol on the way — that wouldn’t be overkill, he thought, and if Sam didn’t need it it probably kept well — and tried his best not to overthink on the silent drive down the interstate. Riley’s distress put him on edge, and…okay, maybe he had missed him a little bit. And Sam.
I should’ve called ahead, he thought belatedly as he took the stairs up to the apartment, but it would be fine. Sam would be confused, Bucky would be embarrassed, and he would dump the soup cans into his arms and then speed back to Brooklyn and hope he could get enough alcohol in his system to dull the mortification.
But there wasn’t an answer at the door the first five times he banged. He frowned.
There was also a bag of some sort of fast food sitting outside the door. Bucky planned to throw it away, because he wasn’t convinced it wasn’t poisoned or that it hadn’t been sitting out all day.
“He’s asleep,” Riley said helpfully as Bucky’s phone call went to voicemail.
Bucky was starting to become acutely aware that he looked like he was talking to himself if there were security cameras. “Well, it is dark outside.”
“He’s been asleep,” he said, worry shining through again.
“Okay, okay,” Bucky said. He tried to think. “What do you want me to do about it, break into his apartment?”
Riley’s eyes lit up. “Great idea! You know how to do that, don’t you?”
Sure. Usually when he was about to kill somebody. He sighed, playing it up a little, even though he probably would be doing this even without Riley pushing him. “If I go to jail for this, I’m digging up your grave to find something to sell to pay the ticket.”
“Oh, there wasn’t much left of me to bury,” he said cheerfully, which was just a wonderful piece of information to learn.
Sam’s locks weren’t exactly easy to pick, but they were possible to get through, which he would have to fix. Couldn’t have just anyone breaking into his apartment. There wasn’t even a chain for after he got through the locks and opened the door. Or an alarm. Which immediately put Bucky in a bad mood.
“There better be a security system,” he said aloud, “and you just were too lazy to set it up tonight. Dumbass.”
The apartment was also a bit of a mess. At least he actually has furniture, Riley would say, but he had disappeared again as soon as the door opened. The sink was full — it looked like at some point Sam had had the energy to make some sort of chicken broth concoction but never ate it all.
He belatedly realized this was his first time seeing where Sam lived. There would be time to freak out about that later.
It was completely dark in the apartment, though Bucky’s enhanced eyesight quickly adjusted. It was easy to find Sam, cocooned under a ridiculous amount of blankets in his bed. A wastebasket on the floor was overflowing with tissues, with another box on his nightstand next to a half-drunk bottle of something colorful.
Well. That wouldn’t do. He grabbed the trashcan and the mystery bottle and took care of that first, taking out the trash. The drink turned out to be Powerade, which was good for sick people, right? He shrugged and grabbed an extra water bottle just in case, and returned to the room.
Was he supposed to wake Sam up? He didn’t exactly look peaceful, all tensed with a faint frown on his face. And if he had really been asleep all day, he should wake up to hydrate, shouldn’t he?
Bucky felt extremely out of his depth. He was also staring, when he had just gotten onto Riley for the whole creepy-stalking thing.
Which is why when Sam flinched Bucky did too, stumbling backwards with uncharacteristic gracelessness into his dresser.
Sam shot up straight at the noise, instinctively fumbling for something on the nightstand — his phone? a gun? — before getting interrupted by a wet-sounding coughing fit that doubled him over.
Bucky turned on the light hurriedly. “It’s me, it’s me!” he said quickly, throwing up his hands.
Sam blinked at him blearily. “What,” he said hoarsely, “the actual fuck?”
“I am so sorry,” he said, face burning. “It’s just— you didn’t answer the door, and—“
Sam opened his mouth to say something else but was interrupted by another bout of coughing.
Bucky crossed the room in an instant, shoving the water at him and instinctively putting a hand on his forehead before he could think better of it.
Sam leaned into the touch, eyes fluttering shut, which sent Bucky’s stomach into a series of increasingly complicated cartwheels.
“Well,” he said when he could find his voice, “you definitely have a fever.”
“It’s a sinus infection,” Sam mumbled. He was pressing more and more of his weight into Bucky’s hand.
Bucky snorted. “This is definitely not just a sinus infection.” He grabbed Sam’s shoulders and guided him back to the pillow.
Sam blinked at him. “Bucky Barnes,” he said, sounding disbelieving, “is manhandling me.”
The gymnastics routine in his stomach added several backflips. “You’re delirious,” he managed to say.
“I know,” he said. “I just hallucinated Bucky Barnes breaking into my apartment and pinning me to the bed.”
There were trapeze artists in there too now. “I did not pin you to the bed,” he huffed. “Also, this is definitely happening, and why are you using my full name?”
Sam blinked again, looking lost. “It’s very bright in here,” he said finally.
Well. The upside was that he probably wouldn’t remember this. “You eat and drink something, and I’ll turn the light off and let you sleep.”
Sam’s nose had wrinkled at the word eat. “I think we’re losing the plot.”
Bucky threw his hands up. “What plot? You know what, never mind, I’ll go get that food. You just wait right here.”
Sam grabbed him, surprisingly quick. “Don’t go.”
Bucky frowned. “I’m just going to the other room. I’ll be back.”
“Don’t—“ his voice caught on the word. “Don’t leave.”
He froze. “Okay,” he said softly. “Just lay back down, and I’ll sit right here, okay?” He perched on the side of the bed.
It took Sam about thirty seconds to fall back asleep and Bucky about twice that to get his heart rate under control. He hadn’t expected…whatever that was.
No time to sit around and think about it. He wanted Sam to have some food as soon as he woke up again, so he quietly slid off the bed and went into the kitchen. First order of business was clearing up the sink, which should’ve been loud enough to wake Sam again but every time he paused and listened, there was nothing from the bedroom.
“How does he look?” came the whisper in his ear when Bucky was putting up the last of the plates.
He jumped. “Jesus,” he hissed. “You need to stop doing that.”
“Sorry,” Riley said. He was still just as outwardly anxious as he was earlier, fidgeting and casting his eyes around the apartment.
“You know you can just check yourself,” Bucky pointed out.
“I know,” he said, but he made no move to, just hovered at Bucky’s shoulders.
Bucky sighed. One thing at a time, he told himself, pouring one of the canned soups in a newly-cleaned pot. “You think this is enough?”
“I don’t know,” Riley said, voice taking on the panicked tinge again. “I don’t— I don’t remember—“
“It’s fine,” Bucky said quickly. “We’ll just make more if we need it, yeah?”
The ghost nodded, eyes flickering back to Sam’s room. Then he abruptly disappeared.
Bucky quickly gathered why; he hadn’t been paying enough attention while they were talking and missed the sounds of Sam’s shuffling footsteps on the bedroom floor.
“What the hell?” Sam said when he appeared in the doorway, wrapped in one of his blankets.
Well, it was an improvement from what the fuck. “I could be asking you the same thing,” Bucky said. “Get your ass back in bed.”
Sam stared. “Why are you in my kitchen?”
“I broke in, remember?”
“I think I would remember that.”
“It was literally less than an hour ago. Now go sit down.”
“About that.” Sam gave him a strained smile. He was leaning against the doorframe, Bucky noticed. “I’m a little, um…”
“You’re about to pass out,” Bucky said flatly.
“Pass out is dramatic,” he argued, but made no move to leave the doorframe.
Bucky rolled his eyes and went to go steady him. “Okay, back to bed.”
Sam planted his feet. “Nope. Not back to bed.”
He didn’t remember it being this difficult. “Sam. You look like you’re dying.”
“Couch, then,” Sam conceded.
Whatever. Whatever. He led him to the couch, which conveniently had no walls between it and the kitchen. “There. Happy?”
Sam was frowning. “Were you…talking to someone a second ago?”
“Only myself,” he lied easily, adjusting the blanket.
“Okay.” He frowned again. “Did I call you?”
“You should’ve,” Bucky chided. “What was your plan, just let your immune system battle it out all by itself?”
Sam looked like he was trying very hard to follow the conversation. “I took…something. Earlier.”
“Uh huh,” he said doubtfully. “Let me get you something to eat, okay?”
In the kitchen, he grabbed the Tylenol — he was pretty certain Sam hadn’t taken any recently enough to make a difference — and the water and soup. “How long have you been like this?”
“Just…a couple days,” Sam said unconvincingly. He coughed again, wincing. “It’s not too bad.”
“It looks pretty bad,” Bucky said, feeling a spike of worry. When was he supposed to take him to the doctor? What if he couldn’t keep his food down? He would call Sarah, but he had only met the woman twice and wouldn’t that be some sort of breach of trust with Sam?
“Shut up and give me that,” Sam said, grabbing at the bowl. He closed his eyes when he took a sip.
“Don’t eat it too fast,” Bucky warned.
“I know, I know,” Sam said grumpily. “You really are a mother hen.”
“Who said I was a mother hen?” he demanded.
“I plead the fifth,” Sam said quickly. He looked dangerously close to dropping the bowl, so Bucky put a steadying hand under it.
“Don’t make me spoonfeed you,” he warned.
Sam huffed out a laugh and winced again.
Bucky watched him for a moment. “You going to fall asleep on me again, Wilson?”
“No,” he said, unconvincingly. He was already starting to lean into his shoulder.
“You better not give me whatever you have.”
“I didn’t think you could get sick.”
“I think your superbug could break that pattern,” Bucky said, fighting the urge to feel his temperature again. He was acutely aware of every part of Sam that was touching him.
“I’m honored,” Sam murmured. Bucky rescued the bowl as his eyes drifted shut.
He sat very, very still, Sam’s breathing on his neck making him shiver. He was delirious. It was probably wrong to sit here, knowing that, right? Healthy Sam would never lean on him like that.
But he remembered the look on Sam’s face when he said, don’t leave.
When he was absolutely, positively certain he was asleep, he whispered, as loud as he dared, “Riley.”
Riley appeared instantly as if summoned (maybe he was — Bucky actually had no idea how it worked) and immediately flickered when he saw Sam. For a moment Bucky thought he was going to run. “It’s okay,” he said quickly. “He’s asleep.” When Riley didn’t immediately answer, he added, “See? He’ll be fine.”
He didn’t seem to hear him, tilting his head as if to take Sam in in a better angle. He took a tentative step towards them, hand outstretched — to do what? touch his face? feel his forehead like Bucky did? — but quickly aborted the movement, stepping back as if physical distance was the only thing that would stop him.
Bucky felt a lurch. Is that what I look like? he thought suddenly. The open faced longing? God, I must be transparent. And if that was what he looked like, when the hell did it start? Just now, after the Flagsmashers? Right after Steve left? As soon as he saw Sam for the first time as Bucky Barnes? There was a clear Before Sam and an After Sam, but he for the life of him couldn’t pinpoint when he had stopped being consistently pissed off at him and when he started being pissed off and deeply attracted to him.
Riley was still staring, though, and Bucky realized belatedly how torturous it must be for him. What had been their relationship, really? “I’m sorry,” he said, feeling like it was insufficient but not having any other words.
That seemed to break Riley free of the pull. He shook his head. “No. No, don’t apologize. I just…haven’t been this close in a long time.”
Bucky searched for something to say to that but came up empty. “You were right to get me,” he said instead.
He grinned. “Of course. I’m always right.” He tore his gaze away from Sam’s face. “You should put a movie on low volume, or something. I’m bored already.”
Bucky had a feeling neither of them would actually be paying attention to it. “Sure, if you make sure he doesn’t wake up with you right next to him.”
Riley rolled his eyes. “I’m always careful.”
Bucky wasn’t sure if it was the medicine, or the food, or something else, but Sam actually slept through the night. And maybe it was his imagination, but he didn’t look nearly as uncomfortable as he had when Bucky had found him, though Bucky’s shoulder shouldn’t have been the best pillow.
Riley left just before dawn, as usual, and Bucky finished the bowl of soup since it was clear he wasn’t getting up anytime soon.
The sun was up by the time Sam stirred. Bucky stiffened, but he just looked a little confused when he sat up and blinked at him, not immediately shoving him away and looking disgusted or embarrassed.
“Do you remember me breaking in this time?” Bucky asked dryly.
“I actually do,” he said, sounding somehow even more congested. “Do you have any tissues?”
“You have tissues,” Bucky said. “I can grab them.”
“Please,” Sam said, which seemed so out of character Bucky wondered for a moment if he really was dying. “And coffee.”
“No coffee,” Bucky said while he found the box of tissues and the empty waste bin. “Water and electrolytes only.”
“No coffee,” Sam repeated.
“Nope.”
“Let me get this straight: you sneak into my apartment, which you still haven’t told me why if I never call you, you mess around in my kitchen while I was sleeping, and then you tell me I can’t have my own coffee.”
“Coffee is a diuretic,” Bucky said matter-of-factly as he handed him the tissues. The internet could be useful sometimes, especially when you’re stuck in place with a sick asleep person on top of you. “That means—“
“I know what it means,” Sam interrupted.
“You should stop talking,” he advised. “It sounds very painful.”
That earned him a glare. “You still haven’t told me what prompted the break-in.”
“I called,” Bucky said with a shrug. “You didn’t answer, so I came to check on you.”
Technically he had called. And Sam wouldn’t know if the timestamps added up, anyway.
“My phone is…” Sam frowned, glancing around the room. “Somewhere. But if a missed call was worth a wellness check, I would be in New York every day.”
That just straight up wasn’t true, but instead of arguing, Bucky just went back into the kitchen. “Does oatmeal sound good for breakfast? Do you have any?”
“It should be in the pantry,” Sam said, blowing his nose. “You don’t have to…you can go, Buck. I’ll be fine.”
Bucky only considered it for a fraction of a second. Sam had asked him to stay, even if he probably didn’t remember the interaction, and so he would. “I don’t have anywhere to be today.”
Sam didn’t answer. “Hey,” Bucky added, glancing over the counter. “No sleeping until you finish that water bottle and get more to eat.”
When he returned with the oatmeal, Sam was looking at him strangely, almost like Bucky was a puzzle he needed to solve. “You don’t have to stay,” he said again.
“Seriously,” Bucky said. “It’s fine.” Then, before he lost the courage, he added, “Maybe I missed seeing your dumb face.”
Sam looked down at his breakfast, and Bucky instantly regretted saying anything. But how was he supposed to take it back? No, actually, I didn’t miss you at all.
“I don’t get you,” Sam said finally, shaking his head.
“Don’t strain yourself,” he said, grabbing the remote. “Let’s see how long you can stay awake this time.”
Sam, disappointingly, ended up falling asleep against the arm of the couch instead, but at least it gave Bucky time to clean everything up.
The fever broke in the evening, but if Bucky came up with an excuse to stay one more night just in case, well, that was between him and the ghost watching them.