Chapter Text
“Jamesy wants to have sex.” The Winter Soldier piped up one foggy Sunday morning, earning the bug-eyed bewilderment of his comrades.
“…Come again?” Steve managed to choke out, noting Sam’s quick cooling of his facial features and mimicking with a gentle cough. “I didn’t hear that, pal.”
He knew better than to show his outward concern, or rather ‘mother-hening’, as the rest of his team would often describe it. The last thing he wanted to do was startle his precious boys if they were going to trust him with something as fragile as this confession.
Or rather, declaration?
“Jamesy wants to try having sex.” The Soldier repeated, not an ounce of concern or mirth.
The silence was heavy and pregnant.
…Poor choice of words.
“Did he tell you that himself?” Sam was the first to break the eternity of space between the bodies tangled together on their shared loveseat.
The Soldier nodded twice, his shower-soft hair gently bobbing with his near-coy movements.
“Said he’s too nervous to ask himself,” The Soldier furthered. “But he feels desperate and is having a hard time dealing with his feelings by himself.”
Sam listened intently as the Winter Soldier spilled his guts about a deep-rooted psychosexual trauma that had taken years of extensive therapy, care, and trust to reach even this very point.
He knew better than to startle him now. He swallowed hard and silent.
“Does he want to talk to us about it?” Steve asked, beating Sam to the punch.
The Soldier nodded again.
“But— not right now.” He clarified, seemingly reminded by an unseen force.
Likely the four-and-a-half year old in question.
“Alright,” Sam nodded. “If he’s sure, then Daddy and Papa would love to talk with him about how he’s feeling and what he wants to do about it when he’s ready.”
The Winter Soldier looked to be on the tipping point of sobbing, if not for the conditioning burned into him at the hands of his long dead and rotting captors. Though, certainly not in an anguished manner.
Rather, relieved.
Sam and Steve both knew better than to draw attention to it.
Sam flicked the TV to the Mets game.