Chapter Text
The Winter Soldier does not get sick.
Who would know, if he did? He certainly wouldn’t recognize it, wouldn’t let anything — illness, grievous injury, emotion — get in the way of accomplishing his mission. His marks wouldn’t notice. And his handlers wouldn’t care, would throw his body back in stasis and his mind back in a fugue of electricity and narcotics, and let the serum take care of it.
The Winter Soldier does not get sick. Never did.
Bucky Barnes, on the other hand? Might be a different story.
He notices the headache in Dakar, on the tail end of another operation Sam’s dragged him along for. The mission is no great shakes, some terrorist group or faction or another, making noise and destroying property for the sake of…something. At this point he doesn’t care too much about the details, figures Sam can handle the nuance. He’s just there to make sure no one else gets hurt, to get bystanders clear of the destruction, take out the goons on rooftops who are trying to get a bead on Captain America.
Sam scuttles off when they’ve taken care of the situation to deal with the press (thank God, the most heroic thing he’s done on this entire excursion). Bucky heads back to the plane, finds a corner of the floor to spread out on, starts cleaning his weapons. He ignores the pounding in the back of his skull, chalks it up to coming off adrenaline from the fight, or maybe a concussive blast from the booby traps he almost didn’t see in time.
Sam shows up about an hour later, pries his goggles off and drops down to the floor across from Bucky with a moan. “You good?” Bucky prompts.
Sam rubs at his eyes. “Yeah. You know they spent more time asking me about this special senate election in New York than they did about what happened here tonight? All they wanted to know is who I’d vote for.”
Bucky scrapes a line of gunk out of the elbow joint of his vibranium arm. “Well, who would you vote for?”
“Does it matter?”
Bucky shrugs. “I guess so.” He scours the back of his hand across his forehead. “Why’s there a special election?”
Sam sighs. “Because the woman who got elected last ended up being a Hydra crony? Whose aide mysteriously got a trove of documents that implicated her?”
“Huh,” he sniffs. “How interesting.”
“Yeah,” Sam responds, giving Bucky a look too long. “How interesting.”
Bucky nods, returns to his cleaning. He glances up when he feels Sam’s gaze remaining on him. “What?” He does not like that expression.
“You alright?” Sam asks.
“Yes,” he drawls.
“You sure?” Sam asks, throwing in a hint of doe-eye for good measure. “You look a little…I don’t know. Off.”
“I always look like this.”
Sam frowns. “Pissy and bitchy? Yeah, you do. But why are you wincing every time someone moves some gear in here?” Is he? Only because they’re all being so loud about it. Enough to give anyone a headache. “Bucky,” Sam needles. “You take a hit in the fight or something?”
No. He took about a dozen. “I’m fine,” he asserts.
“Bucky,” Sam again, just a fucking dog with a bone.
Bucky relents. “Few of those guys had a little surprise waiting for me on that last rooftop.”
“And by ‘little surprise’ you mean what, exactly?” Sam growls.
“Bit of Semtex next to some fuel canisters. Hooked up to a proximity sensor on a cell phone.” He tilts his head. “Neat trick, actually. Might have to steal that idea.”
Sam tips his head back against the bulkhead. “Only you, man.” He shifts his eyes, gives Bucky another assessing stare. “You sure you’re good?”
Bucky sniffs. “Fine.”
Sam lets him go with that. He pushes up to his feet, cracks his neck. “Alright. I’m gonna tell the guys up front we’re ready to get out of here.”
Bucky leans his own head back against the wall when Sam heads to the cockpit. He closes his eyes, tells the dull throb behind his ears to go away and swallows against a dry throat. He’s probably just dehydrated, or something. Dodging bullets and jumping from rooftop to rooftop for a few hours would take it out of anyone.
Sam comes back after the engines have spun up, while the plane is taxiing, and Bucky paints a neutral expression on his face. Sam comes back with two neon-orange bottles of Gatorade tucked under one arm, though, so Bucky’s never been happier to see him.
He reaches a hand out, greedy. “Anyone ever tell you you’re an angel?”
“Yes.” Sam smiles. “You know these are both for me, right?”
“Anyone ever tell you you’re an asshole?”
“Yes,” Sam answers. “You. Every chance you get.”
He tosses a bottle at Bucky all the same. They must hit a pothole or something, because one second Bucky is tracking the bottle coming toward his outstretched hand, and the next it thuds into his stomach, rolls to the floor next to him.
Bucky blinks. He never misses a catch.
Sam blinks. “You never miss a catch.” Then he’s following the bottle’s trajectory across the bay to crouch in front of Bucky. “Shit.” His hand tracks to Bucky’s face. “You did get hit.”
Bucky smacks Sam’s questing fingers away. He’s still quick enough for that. “I’m fine, Sam.” Sam stares. “I’m just a little tired, that’s all.”
“You stayed up for 96 hours once to watch a drop site in Phnom Penh. Few hours getting chased by baddies here, and you want to tell me you’re tired?”
“I’m allowed to be tired.” His voice, Raynor’s words. He scowls. “And I was chasing them, for the record.”
“Duly noted,” Sam replies. He sighs. “You sure you’re alright?”
“Yes,” he answers. Sam stares again. “Keep giving me that puppy dog look,” Bucky snarls, “and I’ll break your nose.”
“Break my nose,” Sam counters, “and every woman in the Northern Hemisphere will hold it against you for the rest of your unnatural life.”
“Half the men, too. But I’ll still do it.”
“Fine,” Sam growls. He snatches the dented Gatorade bottle from the floor, cracks open the lid and presses it to Bucky’s chest until the other man takes it.
Bucky glowers. “You gonna stand there and watch me drink it?”
Sam shakes his head in resignation before walking away. Bucky watches him get comfortable on a brace of duffel bags and wadded up jackets before he brings the bottle to his lips. It’s too sweet, hits his stomach with a sour note but it slips down his parched throat easily enough. He closes his eyes when he’s done, tries to ignore the way his head thrums in time with the engines’ revolutions.
“You okay?” Sam asks again, just loud enough for Bucky to hear over the jet’s roar. And just worried enough that he bites back the barbed retort that springs, chambered, to his lips. He affords Sam a tight nod and a small smile, waits for the other man to doze off in his military-issue nest. When he’s sure Sam’s asleep —really asleep, with his lips drooped open and making noises completely unbecoming of Captain America — he closes his own eyes.
He pulls his legs up to his chest, drops his forehead to his knees. That ache at the back of his head has crept forward, sharp fingers digging into his temples and jaw too. Nothing a few hours’ sleep and a beer or ten when they land won’t take care of. Right?
A kick to the foot wakes him from an uneasy doze. He blinks blearily up at Sam, hands on hips, staring down at him. Sam, who has changed into casual clothes and, based on the duffels next to him, packed up their gear without Bucky noticing. Bucky catches a whiff of fresh air, redolent with jet fuel fumes and the promise of rain. He cranes his head to take in the open cargo ramp, hazy light spilling into the hold. Apparently, they’ve landed. Again, without him noticing. He usually notices things like that.
He pulls his lips into a facsimile of a grin. “Oh, hey Sam,” he says. Well, he tries to say it, but the words catch partway through, and he hacks a hot, dry cough out of his chest.
Sam’s own grin slides off his face. “Shit. You sound great.”
“I am great,” he croaks out.
Sam raises an eyebrow. “Sure. Well,” he waves at the open ramp, “we’re here.”
“Here?” Bucky asks, trawls his mind for where that might be.
Sam sighs. “Yes. Here. Andrews. I’m gonna head to my place, shower the last few days offa’ me. What do you want to do?”
Andrews. Okay. “I’ll head to Union Station. Catch a train to New York.” Sam stands there, staring at him. “What?”
“You gonna change first, or you planning on freaking out the whole train with that get-up?”
Bucky gives himself the once over. Leather jacket, shredded and scorched. Vibranium arm, dull and dirty. He doesn’t know what his face looks like, but he knows what it feels like. “Maybe I’ll change first.”
“Yeah. Good idea.” Sam starts for the open ramp, grabbing a duffel bag in each hand. Or rather, his duffel bag in one hand. Bucky’s in the other. With that change of clothes Bucky desperately needs.
“Hey! That’s mine,” he calls out.
“Sure is,” Sam shoots back over a shoulder, trekking to his Jeep, parked on the tarmac.
“Goddamnit,” Bucky mutters. He uses the wall at his back to foist himself upright. He braces a hand against the bulkhead until the whiteness crowding his vision dissipates. “Shit.” Maybe he did take a harder hit than he remembers. That would explain the headache, the soreness that’s slopped into his joints. How he can be so tired, fatigue seeping in his bones. Why his throat feels like he’s been gargling with sandpaper.
He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. Opens them again when the floor tilts beneath him. He squares his shoulders, walks resolutely down the ramp after Sam. Sam’s already loaded up the car, is starting the engine when Bucky eases himself into the passenger seat.
They don’t say much on the drive. Sam is focused on the midmorning traffic of suburban DC, a pale shade of its rush hour terror, but still plenty to deal with. Bucky leans his head against the window, savors the cold glass against his throbbing temple, ignores the glances Sam shoots his way every few minutes.
Bucky doesn’t move until Sam pulls into the garage under his townhouse. “We’re here,” Sam says unnecessarily. He’s at the back of the car, pulling their bags out of the tailgate, before Bucky has a chance to open his door.
Sam heads in with both bags, brushing past Bucky’s outstretched hand. If he notices the death glare Bucky gives him in exchange, he doesn’t mention it. Bucky trudges up the stairs after him, trailing a hand on the banister for support. Sam drops his own bag in the kitchen when they make the first floor, hauls Bucky’s bag into the guest room and tosses it on the bed.
“At least change before you get in those sheets, alright? You know how hard it is to get soot stains out of Egyptian cotton?” Sam asks.
Bucky stares. “Yes. I do.” Which isn’t even the part of that statement he means to respond to: the unspoken implication that Bucky will be staying here, sleeping in Sam’s guest bedroom, between those Egyptian cotton sheets.
“Good.” Sam leaves without another word. Bucky blinks at the doorway until he hears the creak of water turning on somewhere else in the place. Sam taking that shower, presumably. Bucky turns to look at his bag on the bed, pondering the chances that he’ll get far before he either falls flat on his face or Sam charges out into the streets of Arlington after him in nothing but a bath towel. People would thank him for the latter, at least.
He can’t leave now, though, not when Sam’s had the last word. It’s no fun if it’s not a fight, so he does as he’s told for once, peels off his tattered jacket, kicks off his dusty boots, changes into something clean. He debates seeing if there’s any hot water left, but the bed is too close and he’s too tired. He pitches forward face first, doesn’t even bother to crawl into those pristine Egyptian cotton sheets. He’s out before the water for Sam’s shower stops running.
Bucky must think he’s an idiot.
Correction. He knows Bucky thinks he’s an idiot at least half the time. Most of the time. But Bucky must really think Sam’s dumb, if he believes Sam is buying that stoic-I’m-fine-nothing-to-see-here bullshit.
Sam picked up the taught line of Bucky’s jaw, the tight draw of his eyes, the minute he set down on that last rooftop, sirens and announcements echoing in the smoky night. He certainly didn’t miss the way Bucky held himself, purposefully still, on the aircraft. That Gatorade toss had been a whim. Maybe he’d launched it a little harder than strictly necessary, but Bucky’s normally able to deflect bullets with his metal arm. Thirty two ounces of sugar water shouldn’t have been a challenge.
And there was no way on God’s green earth he was letting Bucky get on a train to New York after he slept through the flight, the landing, Sam packing up their stuff. Half of downtown would have panicked, seeing the Winter Soldier in full regalia again. Someone in the GRC would have raised a stink. Sarah would have killed him.
He tells himself it’s that last one that made him snatch Bucky’s duffel, dare the man to set off without it. Sarah’s the one who insisted he always have the guest room made up, just in case she and the boys came by for an unannounced visit, so really this is her fault. Hopefully, they aren’t planning anything in the next few days, though. The inn is full.
He lingers too long in the shower, eternally grateful to no longer be beholden to the military’s strict water rationing. Besides, he smells like death, or at least like kerosene and nitroglycerin and the sour salty tang of day-old sweat. He’s going to tell Joaquin to find their next assignment in Bora Bora, or maybe Bali.
Bucky is, of course, laid out by the time he gets back downstairs, eases the guest door further open. The man didn’t even bother to take his duffel off the bed or get under the covers. Sam sure as hell isn’t tucking him in. But maybe he puts the bag in the corner, flips a blanket over Bucky’s legs, leaves another bottle of Gatorade on the bedside table. He’s not a monster.
Sam heads to the living room to sprawl out on the couch and fire up his laptop. Usually he’ll wait a day or two before he reviews mission tapes, but he knows he’s not getting any rest until he takes a look. Torres has already sent him the footage of the encounter in Dakar. He must have pulled it together while they were in mid-flight. Kid works fast.
Being up in the air generally affords Sam a better vantage point than anyone else, but it’s hard to see the trees for the forest sometimes. And Bucky’s not always the most forthcoming with the details. He’ll cover the important stuff, sure. Tidbits crucial to the mission, or things that Sam needs to know to keep people safe. And Bucky never, ever, misses an opportunity to tell Sam what he’s doing wrong. Bucky getting shot, though, or launched through a window, or nearly trampled beneath a semi…Sam has a feeling Bucky might omit those details.
Sam doesn’t see anything too odd in the feeds: scattered views of him diving between baddies, kicking a rifle away, sabotaging a .50 cal. Bucky’s on point, too. He launches himself over a 20 foot gap between buildings to tackle someone about to peg Sam’s flying form with an RPG. Sam raises an eyebrow. “Well, thanks for that,” he mutters under his breath. He catches the explosion Bucky mentioned a few minutes later. It sends Bucky flying, and he rolls with the landing, comes up firing.
Sam frowns. He’s seen Bucky take harder hits and bounce right back. Hell, Sam’s taken harder hits and been alright. Still. Could be something else here. He’s watching Bucky dangle one of the goons off a roof by his ankle when he hears it. A deep, hacking cough. The kind that just sounds painful.
But that’s coming from down the hall, not the tinny speakers on his laptop. He listens, thinking. Maybe Bucky got a lungful of too much smoke, acrid and black, from that explosion? Another cough, and he sets the laptop down on the coffee table, picks his way to the guest room. He taps lightly on the door before pushing it open. Bucky looks up at him from the bed, glassy eyes set in a pale face, red streaked high across his cheeks.
“You ever try knocking?” Bucky snipes, hoarse.
Sam winces. “I did.”
“Huh,” Bucky replies.
Sam pads closer to the bed. Bucky tracks him the whole way, eyes keen. Sam leans forward and Bucky leans back, a wary ballet.
Headache, check. Cough, sure. Fever glaze across his cheeks, probably. Sam blinks. Bucky stares.
“Holy shit,” Sam says. “You’re sick.”
Bucky scowls. “No, I’m not.”
“You are,” Sam insists. “How is that even possible?”
“It isn’t. I’m not.”
“I am looking right at you, man. I see it.”
“I can’t get drunk. How could I get sick?” Bucky whines.
“World’s a cruel place,” is the only answer he can muster.
“I’m not sick,” Bucky says again. Small and petulant, rough and tired. Sam would say like a child, but every time he or Sarah were sick growing up, they milked it for everything it was worth. A.J. and Cass are masters of the craft, too.
“You been sick before?” he asks.
Bucky responds with his best are-you-fucking-kidding-me stare. Which might be more effective if he didn’t look like a drowned river rat. “I grew up in the 30s, dumbass. You know, right before penicillin became the hot new thing?”
Steve told him once he didn’t remember much of ’35, spent most of it in bed tripping from fever to fever. Steve shared that memory like he shared everything, wholehearted, earnest, eager to connect. Steve also got real worried, when they were holed up somewhere outside of Tangier for a while and Sam came down with a wicked cold. Brought Sam Dayquil and harira from a little place down the street. Steve was great.
Steve is gone. And Bucky Barnes is the one sitting in Sam’s guest bed. “No shit, thanks for that. I meant after the serum, moron.”
Bucky opens his mouth. Closes it after a moment. “I don’t know. Hydra wasn’t big on sick days.” He frowns. “And the Winter Soldier wasn’t inclined to take them. Still I remember…I remember…not feeling great, sometimes? Then I’d get back and they…well…I didn’t notice if I wasn’t feeling great after that.”
Okay. Okay. Shit. That was a can of worms he did not mean to open. And now Bucky’s not just sick in his guest bed, he’s got that forlorn, thousand yard stare going that does not make something catch in the back of Sam’s throat, no sir. Sam coughs. “Okay. So question mark there. You think you could have got hit with something else? Poisoned, maybe?”
Bucky’s brows furrow. “This isn’t poison.”
“You’re awfully confident about that.”
“I’ve been poisoned plenty, Sam. This isn’t it.”
Sam huffs. “Uh. Okay. Spell?”
Bucky glares. “No.”
“You fall out of phase?”
Bucky blinks. “I don’t know what the fuck that means. No.”
“Freaky alien virus?”
“No.”
“So normal earth-bound virus then.”
“Probab…no.”
Sam grins. It’s almost too easy, sometimes. He’s just that good. Then Bucky hacks out a disconsolate cough that makes Sam grimace. Okay. It’s possible the deck is a little stacked for this hand. “Man, you’re sick. You know what my Titi used to make me when I was sick?”
“No,” Bucky snaps. “Don’t care.”
“Bouillabaisse. Extra spicy.”
Bucky groans and flops back to the bed. He pulls a pillow over his head. “Go away,” he says, or maybe it’s “have a great day.” Hard to tell.
Sam walks over, peels a corner of the pillow back. His grin tempers when he gets a closer look at Bucky’s face. Watery eyes, flushed cheeks, dry lips. He’ll give Bucky shit all day, but not when the man’s already down.
“Jesus, man, will you at least take some cold medicine or something?” Bucky glares. “It can’t hurt,” Sam cajoles.
Bucky makes to retort, before he’s interrupted by a few more hacking coughs, the kind that sound like barbed wire coming out. “Fine,” he wheezes.
Bucky’s planning on pitching another fit when Sam gets back, or at least making the man work for his concession. By the time Sam treads back into the room, blister pack of bright blue pills in one hand, though, he’s lost the will. He doesn’t even gripe when Sam snaps the pills out for him, drops them into his waiting hand. Sam passes him the Gatorade too, takes it back from him when he’s done. Like the bedside table is too far away for Bucky to manage. It isn’t, really.
Still, he doesn’t mind not having to make the effort. Not when simple things like staying upright, keeping his eyes open, feel like herculean tasks. He’s out again, long before the Nyquil could have kicked in.
And he’s up again, before he knows he was down, a deep, wrenching cough tearing its way out of his throat. He hacks into his pillow, eyes watering, and then Sam’s there. Pressing a palm, fingers wide, into the hollow between Bucky’s shoulder blades. The pressure helps, gives him something to brace against through the jag. He slumps down into the mattress when it’s done. Utterly spent.
“Yeah,” Sam says. “You’re definitely not sick, or anything.”
Bucky mutters into his pillow, “Definitely not.”
“So what is it?” Sam asks. “Cough, headache, fever, achy joints. Anything else?”
Hmm. That’s a pretty good list. Cough’s pretty obvious. He doesn’t remember telling Sam about the ache in his head, and everywhere else, for that matter. And how does Sam know he has a fever?
“Took your temperature while you were sleeping, dumbass,” Sam responds, and Bucky realizes he’s been talking out loud.
“You what?” he says, knowingly this time.
“Yeah,” Sam confirms. “Man, you were out of it.”
“Shit,” he grumbles. That might explain why he’s under the covers now too. He definitely doesn’t remember doing that himself.
“Shit,” Sam agrees. “So help me out here, man. Can you get sick? Cuz if this is just a cold or whatever, that’s fine, but I need to know you’re not patient zero for some alien pandemic or something.”
Bucky huffs into the hand at his back. Still there? He hadn’t noticed. “I…yes.”
“Yes?”
“I can get sick. Not often, but…yeah. It happens.”
Sam hums. “Really? Seems like the serum should take care of that, right?”
“It…usually does,” Bucky answers.
“Usually?”
“Unless it’s working too hard at something else.”
“Something else?” Sam growls, low and dangerous, and Bucky’s glad he can’t see the other man’s face. Still, the hand on his back twitches in warning.
“Yes?” He hacks out half a cough, hoping for a shred of mercy.
“Bucky,” Sam snaps. So much for that. “What is the something else?”
“A cracked rib, maybe?” he offers.
“That all?” Sam asks, tight and wary.
“Sure.”
“Jesus Christ,” Sam barks. “Don’t think I won’t smother you with that fucking pillow, Barnes.”
“Fine. A few broken ribs, from that fight in Copenhagen.”
“And?” Sam presses.
Fuck. “Okay,” he relents. “Might have taken some shrapnel to the thigh, during that thing in Tel Aviv.”
“Is that all?” Sam grits out.
“Think I stubbed my toe on some of our gear in Dakar?” Bucky offers.
“Didn’t you get thrown from a moving car last week in Amman?” Sam wonders.
Oh. Yeah. “Forgot about that one.”
He can’t see Sam draw in a deep breath and let it go, but he hears it, feels it through the hand on his back. “Alright. Let me get this straight. You broke a few ribs in Denmark. And didn’t tell me.”
“Technically, that bronze statue broke them,” he corrects.
“And then,” Sam continues, undeterred, “you got hit with shrapnel while we were fighting those LAF screwballs in Israel. And didn’t tell me.”
“Yes,” he confirms. “Didn’t do any major damage, though.”
“And finally,” Sam concludes, “you were sick while we were in Senegal. And you didn’t. Fucking. Tell me.”
If he pretends to pass out now, is that going to make the situation better or worse?
“Worse,” Sam retorts. “Bucky, definitely worse!”
Oh. Again with that saying these things out loud when he doesn’t mean to.
“It’s the cold medicine, man. And, I don’t know, maybe the broken fucking bones and the goddamn major flesh wounds. Asshole.”
Right. He opens his mouth to respond, on purpose this time, and all that comes out is a series of wrenching coughs, sending a spike into his brain with every hack. Fuck. Fuck that hurts.
Sam’s hand rubs a line along his spine. “Try to breathe, okay? Take it easy.”
Sure, easy. He’s panting, wheezing, shaking, by the time he’s done. Shit, Sam’s gonna be pissed.
“I’m not pissed, dumbass. Well. Okay. I’m pissed. Mostly worried, though, alright?”
“Sam,” Bucky says at last. “Not feeling too great.”
Sam chuffs out a soft laugh. “No kidding, Buck. Why don’t you try to get some more sleep, huh?”
He closes his eyes, latches himself to Sam’s hand, still on his back, until he can lower himself into a fragmented slumber.
He picks up pieces above the surface: Sam coming in and out of the room in daylight, and again in darkness, whispering. Something plastic pressing into his temple until it beeps, a few times. Then one side of a conversation. Sam’s side.
“Yes, yes. Look, I know you aren’t that kind of doctor.” Sam paces in the hallway outside Bucky’s room. He pauses outside the door. “I just…look, he’s pretty sick, alright? No. No. Yes. Yes. Definitely yes. 103, last time I checked. Just now.”
Sam prowls further down, his voice growing fainter. “But…hey…well, I don’t know. Aren’t you supposed to be the expert here? I don’t know, man. He’s says it’s working overtime on other things.”
“What?” His voice grows terse. “Okay, some broken ribs, I guess. Pretty deep cuts in his leg, too. Maybe a concussion, also? Well, I don’t…for fuck’s sake, he didn’t tell me, alright?” Now a low growl, like a cross dog giving notice. “Of course I wouldn’t have, if I had known. Yeah, well, did Steve tell you guys when he was banged up?” Lower, as he comes back toward the door. “Right, that’s what I thought.”
Sam takes that deep, patented Sam sigh. “Look, can you just help me out here? It’s not like I can take him to a hospital, okay? Why? Because he would lose his shit if he woke up there, alright?” Back to that animal growl, a note of warning. “Seventy years as a Hydra lab rat ring a bell? No. I’m not doing that,” Sam hisses.
It’s quiet, for a moment. “Well…he…no…no…bu…no, that’s not what I meant.” Sam groans. “Look, it’s…because you’re you, okay?” Softer still, entreating. “Just…please? Yeah. My place. In DC. Sure. Thanks, man.”
Bucky stills when Sam eases his way back into the room, light from the hall cutting a slim gash across the foot of the bed. It’s not a tremendous change from what he was doing before. Sam pads closer, drops a cool hand to Bucky’s shoulder. It feels cool to Bucky, at least.
“Hey. You awake?”
He’s way past the point of subterfuge. “Yeah,” he croaks, hoarse. Coughs for good measure.
“Okay.” There’s the sound of foil and plastic popping, then Sam shifts Bucky until he’s mostly upright against the pillow. He presses a few capsules into Bucky’s palm again, guides Bucky’s hand to his mouth. Bucky takes the pills and the Gatorade without complaint. He doesn’t have the energy, and he couldn’t sway Sam anyway.
Then Bucky’s prone again, a hand ghosts over his forehead, then it’s back into a bleak sleep.
Sam is really going to kill Bucky. Once he’s back on his feet, that is. No point in doing it now, there’d be no challenge. Sam likes a challenge.
Sam likes some challenges. Figuring out how a hundred year old super soldier former assassin can get laid this low? That’s a challenge he wasn’t seeking. And a few semesters of biology at LSU isn’t going to cut it.
He’s seen plenty of injuries before. Treated plenty, too. Kind of came with the rescue part of the pararescue gig. Illnesses too, because getting shot down in hostile territory didn’t always come with a case of Evian and hand sanitizer. He’s had somewhat less experience with both of those in the context of super soldiers, though.
He probably would have just let Bucky sleep it off, best thing for a cold anyway. But then that cough kept sounding worse, and the fever got higher, and then he’d actually gotten a straight answer out of Bucky about all the bumps and bruises he was carrying into the fight. It’s the honesty that makes him worry, wonder if something might be cooking Bucky’s brain. And Dr. Google didn’t have a whole lot of answers for him.
The first thing he does when he gets off the phone, gets some more meds in Bucky, is fire up the footage from those previous missions. The folders are in alphabetical order, so Amman is first.
The feeds aren’t great, the best Torres could do. He finds no answers there. He remembers seeing it, though, from the air. Bucky clinging to the roof of a beat-up sedan, trading blows through a broken window with the driver. Bucky flying off the roof of that sedan, as it took a hard left turn into a drainage ditch right outside a government building. Sam was too preoccupied with the impressive explosion that engulfed the vehicle when it went down in the ditch to take much notice of Bucky crashing into a house on the side of the road, his body leaving a crack in the mortar.
But he did see it, didn’t press Bucky when the man told him he was fine, and then they’d both been busy with the other explosives-laden car coming at them. Shit. He should have known. That one’s on him.
Copenhagen is next. The Danes love their surveillance cameras these days, so he gets that one from multiple angles. Bucky’s fending off two guys atop some historic castle in the city center, trying to buy Sam time to rescue a few hostages. He breaks one goon’s nose with an elbow when the other grabs him in a bear hug, sends them both toppling over the edge of the roof. They land on one of the garden’s dozen statues, this one a bronze fountainhead in the shape of a young child, snap off the poor boy’s outstretched arm. Bucky rallies first, of course, dunks the other guy’s head in the tiled pool around the fountain until he comes up sputtering, begging for mercy.
It’s the kind of encounter Sam would love to give him endless shit over, the Winter Solider soaked to the bone and flailing around in eighteen inches of water. When he looks closer, though, he sees the way Bucky presses a hand to one side, grimacing as he drags the hapless thug to dry ground. Bucky hadn’t said a thing, after. What a dick.
Finally, to Tel Aviv. Bucky’s taking cover behind a mangled shipping container when it takes a hit from something offscreen, goes up in flames. The scene is too dark and the video’s too distant and grainy to make out much else – it must be from one of the security cameras at the docks. Sam remembers this part: nose diving into the woman who was popping off grenades at Bucky, sending her tumbling off the pier into the Mediterranean.
Bucky had shrugged him off when Sam pulled the other man out of the rubble, told him to take care of the rest of the LAF’s goons. Inky night, Bucky’s black leathers, no wonder Sam didn’t see the blood that must have been there. Fuck it, he is going to kill Bucky, if no one else gets to it first.
A knock on the door interrupts his murderous musings. He looks through the peephole, pulls the door open.
“How the hell did you get here so fast?”
Bruce Banner shrugs, peers back at him through thick glasses. “We have friends with some very interesting abilities, Sam.”
“No shit,” Sam replies. “Thanks for coming.”