Work Text:
It’s a little over a year after they first started dating, when Sam and Bucky are enjoying a romantic stroll through the park. Small kisses, quiet chuckles at inside jokes, entwined fingers and two earpieces as they listen and wait for Barton’s signal that their guys are on the move. Bucky would have rather been up high with his sniper, helping Clint do surveillance but they needed inconspicuous agents on the ground in case the guy had a feeling he was set up. Instead of sending out two new agents, Clint threw in Sam and Bucky’s names because they are a couple, and no one would think twice about seeing them walking in the park, which they do every chance they get and is why they are here now.
They have been walking in circles around the park for almost an hour before they hear Clint’s voice in their ears, “The guys are just leaving the store, they’re heading towards the park.” As soon as Clint clicks off, Steve tells them they will try to get him just before he enters the park. Turning on their heels, Bucky and Sam begin heading back around towards the entrance.
“Things didn’t go as planned,” Steve grunts. “They are heading inside.” Bucky looks over when Sam chuckles and sees he’s smiling. As they begin looking for where the other agents are heading, Sam cheekily taunts, “What happened, Cap? Did you try to get them to surrender nicely?” They don’t hear Steve say anything and they both laugh when his voice filters back through their ears, “They’re running straight to the middle of the park, one has a pistol in the back of his jeans.”
Mentally mapping out the best ways to the middle of the park, Bucky remembers seeing a family close by where they are heading; a mother and four small children with a puppy. He knows they have to catch the men before they are able to try and take anyone hostage and nudges Sam to go around the right path, while he runs down the left path to cut off their chances of escaping the park.
By the time he rounds the corner, Tony’shovering down to the ground as Steve talks to the guy Natasha had on the ground while Clint walks in with the agents. “One got away, keep your eyes open. He couldn’t have gone too far.” Scanning the area, Bucky doesn’t see anyone looking out of place, while more agents show up, but one thing he did notice: Sam’s not there and that makes Bucky slightly nervous.
When Bucky runs back to where he left Sam to go off on his own, he jogs down the path a little way and stops as he comes across two small girls crying. When they see Bucky, they start pointing and crying even louder, “Help him! He chased him that way! Please!!”
Bucky starts running in the direction they pointed and starts getting worried more and more the longer he doesn’t see Sam. He follows the path for probably ten minutes before he faintly hears Sam cry out, “Motherfuck-.” When Bucky hears nothing else, he races in that direction to find Sam laying flat on the ground not moving, with a red spot on his shirt. It’s the only thing his brain can focus on in the moment.
He immediately runs over and drops to his knees next to his boyfriend.“Sam! Sam, baby please.” Bucky slowly begins to turn Sam on his uninjured side, “You gotta get up, babe.” When he’s lying fully on his back Bucky can see Sam’s still breathing strong and he leans his forehead against Sam’s. “Baby, I need you to open your eyes for me, say something please, Sam. C’mon baby, I need you.” When Sam still doesn’t make any movement other than breathing, Bucky does the one thing he always remembered his Ma doing, “Samuel Thomas Wilson! If you don’t get up now-!”
“Would you please stop your rambling?” Sam coughs as he sits up. “I mean, it’s cute and all babe, but m’fine. I just tripped trying to catch him.” Sam raises his hands for Bucky to help him up and Bucky still checks him over. “Bucky, baby, I’m fine really. I promise nothing other than falling happened to me.”
“Sam,” Bucky breathes a sigh of relief, “What the hell are you doing all the way over here? Everyone else is on the other side of the park.” Sam smiles and tells Bucky not to move for a second and walks around him. When he comes back around, he is holding a leash, “The dog ran away, Buck. From those little girls that were crying? I guess when people started running from the area the guys headed, little Buddy here got too hyper and pulled away from those girls. I knew you guys would have the bad guys handled, so I went on my own mission.”
Bucky, bewildered, stares at his boyfriend as Sam continues. “I told the kids, ‘if you see a big guy with a cool arm and beautiful flowy hair, tell him I went that way’ and they did, because here you are. I fell just as I was about to catch him. He ran into one of those snow cone carts and the red juice fell over when I hit it and spilled on me, which is why that’s there,” Sam waves to the big red spot on his shirt, “And then when I fell, I heard someone say, ‘I’ll grab him!’ and they did, and now we can go be heroes to those little girls!” Once Sam finishes, that’s when Bucky finally looks around and notices the small bit of destruction that his boyfriend and the runaway dog caused.
Bucky smiles and nods at Sam repeating, “Let’s go let you be a hero to those little girls, babe.” And he does - or they both do, really - become heroes to those girls, that is. When they jog back through the park to where they had split up earlier, the girls are just calming down in their tears. Once they see Sam and Bucky heading towards them, they start jumping and cheering happily because their dog is back, and their mother thanks them countless times. It is a nice feeling; they spend a few minutes listening to the kids say their own thanks and from the dog and then they are finally on their way home.
===
Tony, Natasha, Steve, Clint and Bruce are all waiting quietly in the common room for Bucky and Sam, but the second they see Sam’s state of disarray is when Sam and Bucky get bombarded with questions.
Clint’s eyes go wide and not even a second later - “Woah. What happened? Did you guys purposely go off on your own instead of complete the mission? Was that an actual date for you two?! Why does it look like you are still out of breath, Sam? And Bucky, why does Sam look like he’s been rolled around in the dirt but you have not? Did you guys-”
“That’s enough, Clint,” Natasha says as she slaps a hand over his mouth. “If you want them to answer any of your questions you have to breathe long enough for them to get a word in.” Once Natasha removes her hand, Clint raises his eyebrow at both Sam and Bucky, waiting for his answers.
Sam glances at Bucky and gives him a mischievous smile as he begins to tease Clint with short, simple answers to his questions. But when no one puts together what happened, Sam walks to sit in the open space on the couch and starts his retelling of the entire afternoon. He answers easily from the whispered conversation on how they are going to run away to the Bahamas to celebrate their one-year anniversary all the way through him chasing the dog instead of the guy they were after and all that happened with that.
As Bucky leans against the doorway listening to Sam retell everything like it was this big, fantastic adventure they went on, he enjoys hearing the laughs and little comments from the team as Sam gets to certain parts. The atmosphere that is surrounding him takes Bucky’s mind back to the times he had with his family. The times being surrounded by his mom, sisters and Steve, telling stories about their days and all the excitement he could hear in their voices when they talked, and how everyone jumped in to ask questions. The small squeals and huffs coming out when someone did something scandalous (like Steve when he tried to fight four guys all three times the size of him), were one of the memories that got knocked loose when he was transported back because of feeling the same emotions.
He feels a love for these people in front of him. It’s a different kind of love than that which he had with his mom and sisters, but it is a familial bond nonetheless. Bucky has never been so glad that Steve dragged him here than he is in this moment.
He wasn’t born into this family, none of them are blood-related, they all come from different places, different backgrounds, different traumas that all helped define who each person is. And they accepted Bucky. They see that he isn’t HYDRA’s assassin anymore; that he is willing to do anything they need him to, and they let him in to this family bond. The bond that helps them come together to save or avenge the world when disaster strikes.
“-ney. Bucky?” Bucky snaps his eyes over to Sam and Steve once he realizes he is being called and the second he connects eyes with Sam, Bucky knows they had a feeling of what is going on in his head. In the next second, when both Steve and Sam start walking his way is what confirms it for him. “Buck, honey.” Sam reaches his hand out for Bucky to take, “What are you doing over here all by yourself?” Bucky slips his fingers between Sam’s and notices how easily the two men, who stand at his sides like two pillars keeping him from floating away in the torrential downpour that can be his mind, pull him further into the room with the team.
The way Steve and Sam are keeping him grounded in this moment, is when Bucky knows that’s their way of showing they understand what’s going on. That is when Bucky realizes both Sam and Steve know how it feels when first becoming a part of the Avengers, and instead of letting his mind wander off to the deepest, darkest parts, Bucky understands they are trying to show him something. It’s a strong hit of emotions when he finally understands what it is.
He’s one of them now - he is a part of this family.
And as Bucky feels Steve’s hand grip his right shoulder at the same time Sam’s hand squeezes his left hand and places a kiss on the cool metal, Bucky knows this is where he is meant to be. And he’s damn glad he stayed to be a part of this family.
Nothing can ever compare to the bond with his mom and sisters, but this is damn close and Bucky’s glad he gets to call these people his family.
Later that night in their bedroom, the men are relaxing on their bed. Music softly echoing around the room, Sam laying in between Bucky’s legs with his back to Bucky’s chest. He’s tracing designs all over Bucky’s metal arm with his fingers when he suddenly flips his body over. Bucky raises his brow in question as he runs his fingers down Sam’s cheek. Sam doesn’t say anything at first, just stays there on his stomach, eyes closed and enjoying the feel of Bucky’s fingers running along his jaw for a few moments. He lets his head drop to Bucky’s chest, which lets Bucky massage the nape of Sam’s neck and upper back and that’s when he softly mumbles, “I can’t believe you full-named me in the park today, babe.”
Bucky stops his ministrations and lets out a genuine belly laugh. Sam lets a smile cover his face but stays laying on Bucky’s chest, enjoying the way it rumbles with each new string of laughter that Bucky can’t control.
It takes a few minutes before Bucky can calm down and he shrugs with a smile when Sam moves his head to glance up at him. Bucky lets Sam lay his head and resumes his impromptu massage on his boyfriend before he replies. “You wouldn’t wake up, Sam. It’s one thing I remember my Ma doing to me and my sisters when we didn't want to wake up, either. It always used to work with the Barnes kids, and it worked with you too.”
Watching as Sam sits up and gives a hesitant, curious look. He clears his throat a couple times before facing Bucky again. “Can, uh, can you tell me more about your family? What you remember about your mom and sisters, I mean? I’d love to know more about the women who helped you become my James Barnes.”
Bucky feels tears come to his eyes and he nods quickly, letting Sam crawl over to sit next to him against the headboard. “Yeah,” Bucky answers breathlessly, “Yeah, then you can tell me more about your family too, yeah?” Sam easily agrees and that’s how they spend the rest of their night - sharing many stories of them with their families until the early hours of the morning.