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The Thunderbolts had all seen many things in their overly-traumatic lives. Death, suffering, abuse, war. So much so that they all figured to themselves that nothing they ever saw again would surprise them.
They were all sorely proven wrong when John, Ava, Yelena, and Bob walked into the kitchen together one random bleary Saturday morning to find Captain America, dressed in ratty gray sweatpants and a baggy shirt they'd definitely seen Bucky wear before, making pancakes and bacon.
“Uh,” Bob said intelligently, freezing in his tracks and staring wide eyed at the cooking superhero. “...Hi?”
“Hey!” Their unexpected guest turned around to face them, wiping his palms on the front of his sweats and extending his hand to shake. “Sam Wilson.”
“Uh,” Bob said again, lightly shaking Sam's hand and not dropping his wary, confused stare. “I’m… Bob. This is Yelena, Ava, and John.”
Sam nodded in John's direction. “Nice to see you again, Walker.”
John, who hadn't moved all the way through the doorway yet, having stopped dead in his tracks upon seeing Sam, just gave a wobbly half smile and nodded minutely.
“I wasn't sure what time you all would be up,” Sam said conversationally, turning back to his pancakes. “Bucky doesn't wake up ‘til fucking noon most of the time, but I figured you guys wouldn't be that bad.”
Against his better judgement, a disbelieving, short, harsh laugh escaped Bob's mouth. “Hah!” He glanced over at the others, who looked equally as perplexed. “Bucky? Wake up at noon? Mister ‘Rise and Shine’ himself?” Bob shook his head, raising an eyebrow at Sam. “He's up before the sunrise everyday–” He stopped himself from going on a tangent and shook his head again. “Wait, I'm sorry, but why exactly are you here? In our kitchen? Making breakfast? I thought you hated us.”
Sam, flipping the pancakes, didn't look at Bob as he answered. “I don't hate you. I hate Valentina, yes. But not you guys. I was pissed for a while about the whole name thing, but when Bucky explained it a few weeks ago I realized you all really were kinda just thrown into this.” He turned back to the Thunderbolts and shrugged. “And I'm making pancakes in your kitchen because it'd be kinda pointless to make them at my house and bring them over when I was already here.”
“You were already here?” Yelena echoed, looking more and more doubtful of the situation by the second.
“Yep,” Sam answered lightly, prodding a pancake gently with his spatula to check if it was done. “And don't worry, I know you're thinking this is some secret invasion, poison in the food, bait and trap typa thing.” He held his hands up with a genuine smile. “I don't blame you for being suspicious. But if it's any consolation, I failed high school chemistry, so even if I did want to poison you it probably wouldn't work.” When he got awkward silence in response, he just smirked. “That was a joke. You can laugh.”
“Hah.” Bob shuffled closer to Yelena, who was still eyeing Sam warily. “Uh, so, I think we're just gonna–” He pointed at the dining table across the room and awkwardly dragged Yelena over to it behind him. Ava and John, both also dumbfounded by the presence of America's most famous icon domestically making them breakfast like some kind of 50s housewife, followed suit silently.
“What the fuck is he doing here?” Yelena whispered to her teammates once they'd huddled tightly into a group at the table, out of Sam's earshot.
“Making breakfast,” Bob replied. “Apparently.”
“So, what?” Ava asked, peeking over her shoulder at Sam, who was now humming softly as he cracked eggs into a bowl. “Captain America just does breakfast house calls now?”
The others turned to face John. “You've known him before this,” Bob said. “What's he doing?”
John looked utterly bewildered, shrugging. “Hell if I know. Where's Bucky? He'll know.”
Yelena looked down at her watch. “It's 9:30, so he's probably in the gym by now. We won't see him for at least another hour.”
As if summoned by his name, or perhaps just a random stroke of Thunderbolt luck, there was the sound of shuffling footsteps coming from the hallway that made the teammates turn their heads.
Bucky's hair was completely disheveled, standing on end like he'd been electrocuted six times over. His shirt was wrinkled and frumpy, and instead of his usual gym sweatpants he wore red and blue plaid pajama bottoms. His eyes were half lidded but there were no purple bags under them that suggested a night filled with restless nightmares.
The other Thunderbolts were taken aback by their leader's unkempt appearance, yes, but they watched with bated, tense breath as Bucky yawned and made his way over to Sam.
And what they witnessed next changed everything.
Bucky sidled up behind a still-cooking Sam, and before anyone could warn him what a terrible idea it was, wrapped both his mismatched arms around the Captain’s waist and placed a soft kiss on the back of his neck.
“Morning, gorgeous,” he said in his gravelly morning voice.
Sam hummed contentedly, leaning back into Bucky’s embrace. “Morning. We have an audience.”
Bucky chuckled softly, burying his face into the crook of Sam's neck from behind and dropping a few more kisses on the exposed skin. “Yeah, I saw ‘em.”
Said ‘audience’ had their jaws on the ground, gaping like they’d just uncovered the scandal of the century. Which, to be fair, they kinda had.
“I’m sorry,” Ava said, shaking her head and holding her hands up like she didn’t quite know how to process everything in front of her. “But what the hell is going on?”
Bucky reached around Sam’s body with his metal arm, keeping his flesh one firmly on Sam’s hip, and grabbed a piece of bacon straight from the pan. “Breakfast,” he tossed helpfully over his shoulder at Ava, still holding onto the still-sizzling bacon without so much as a wince.
“One of these days you’re gonna do that with the wrong hand,” Sam told Bucky, slapping his metal fingers away from the pan with his spatula. “And I’m gonna laugh my ass off.”
“Rude,” Bucky said with a fake pout barely concealing his smile, crunching down on the bacon and disentangling himself from Sam to lean his hip against the countertop two inches away. “I thought you loved me.”
“I’d love you more if you stopped eating before I’m finished.”
Bucky smirked, quirking an eyebrow and leaning in closer with a look on his face and a gleam in his eye the Thunderbolts had never seen before (and in fact scared the living shit out of them). “C’mon Sammy,” Bucky said, voice low. “You know my eating always makes you finish faster.”
The double entendre was lost on absolutely no one in the room, a fact proven by the choked gasp from Bob and muttered “Jesus Christ” from John– reminding both Sam and Bucky that they did indeed have an audience.
“What,” Yelena said, trying to sound menacing but coming off as more utterly flabbergasted. “The. Fuck.”
“Are you two dating?” Bob demanded.
Ava scoffed at the question. “No shit they’re dating, Bob, did you just hear that?”
“Walker, did you know about this?” Yelena asked, turning with wide, surprised eyes to John.
“How the hell would I know?” John shouted back, waving wildly with his hands and narrowly avoiding whacking Bob in the face. “I haven’t seen Sam in forever! I’m just as shocked as you are!”
Amidst the chaos going on at the table, Sam turned to face a still-smirking Bucky. “You’re impossible.”
Bucky shrugged. “I figured after a hundred years it’s time to have some fun and fuck around with people a little bit, y’know?”
Sam chuckled and shook his head, sliding pancakes off his spatula and onto the paper plates lined up on the counter. As he prepped the plates, Bucky, like they’d practiced this routine a million times before, reached easily above his head, and grabbed two coffee mugs.
“Oh you do love me,” Bucky said, seeing the coffee pot had already been turned on and filled to the brim. He poured a generous amount into both mugs, replaced the pot, and walked a few strides over to the fridge for creamer. After adding a splash to one of the mugs, he replaced the carton and went back to leaning against the counter, both mugs in hand.
“We don’t have hazelnut,” Bucky told Sam, handing him the mug he’d put the creamer into. “Only Alexei’s nasty-ass vanilla bean shit. Sorry. I’ll go out and buy some before you come over next time.”
Sam took the mug from Bucky’s outstretched hand, smiled, and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks, Buck.”
“Hey!” Yelena’s voice cut sharply through the moment like a knife. “Lovebirds! Care to answer our questions or just keep flirting? Because we’d all really love to know what the hell is going on.”
Sam and Bucky both laughed a bit. Bucky leaned in to steal one last kiss before breaking away and facing the others at the table, saying, “yeah, yeah, we’re coming.”
Together, Sam and Bucky distributed the plates of breakfast around to everyone (Bob managed to squeak out a “thanks” when Sam handed him his, while John was unable to even muster up a nod of acknowledgement, his mouth still hanging agape) and took their own seats, next to each other.
“Okay,” Ava said the second Bucky had plopped into his chair and reached for his coffee cup. “Details. Now. Why the hell is Captain America in our kitchen and why the hell are you loving all up on him like he didn’t just try to fuck up our entire lives?”
Bucky scratched the back of his neck, glancing over at Sam who semi-guiltily shrugged back.
“If it’s any consolation,” Sam said, “as I said before, I don’t actually hate you all.”
“No,” Yelena said scathingly, “you just hate our brand and our name and everything we do and have been trying to rob us blind for almost a year.”
Sam winced a bit at her tone. “Yeah… I was pissed at first. Not specifically at you, or the team, but just at the situation in general. I’d been asked to rebuild the Avengers and hesitated, and Bucky was the one to tell me to do it. Then I find out almost immediately afterwards that he went off and joined another Avengers team?” Sam glanced over at Bucky, whose eyes had downturned and whose hand fidgeted minutely on the table. “But we worked it out. It took a while, and it was… a lot… but we figured it out.” He reached over and squeezed Bucky’s hand. “And while, yes, I’m still continuing with the lawsuit, I’ve been in contact with my lawyer –some superhero specialist attorney in L.A. who’s related to Banner somehow– and Bucky’s been talking a bit with Murdock, and we think we can spin the case to where Valentina gets all of this shit pinned on her.”
Yelena crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair. “Okay. That’s great.” Her frown deepened, however, despite her words, and her eyes pierced so sharply at Sam that the poor Captain began to sweat. “So when did all of this–” she gestured between Sam and Bucky with her fork, “--happen?”
Bucky itched the back of his neck again, looking slightly guilty. “Like… a while ago? Right after the Flag Smashers thing.”
“WHAT?!” The other four Thunderbolts were simultaneous with their reactions, their earlier babble and chatter about the absurdity of it all back in full force.
“You mean to tell me I didn’t just imagine the insane amount of sexual tension you two had that whole time?” John demanded.
“Uh…” Sam replied oh-so-eloquently, exchanging a look with an amused Bucky. “No?”
“You two have been dating this whole time and didn’t even think of telling us?” Yelena said angrily, rounding on Bucky with those scarily sharp eyes.
Bucky held up his mismatched hands defensively. “To be fair, we weren’t dating for most of the time the team has been together. We had a fight right after Val declared us the New Avengers and kinda… What was the term you used, Sam? ‘Took a break.’” He looked over at his boyfriend with an unreadable glance. Sam had half the decency to look a little apologetic. “It’s why I live here. In the Watchtower. With you guys. Instead of at my house. With my boyfriend. Where I’d lived for a whole year before he kicked me out.”
“I didn’t kick you out,” Sam replied, rolling his eyes. “I just made you sleep on the couch for a few nights.”
“Practically a divorce,” Bucky said with an overly dramatic sniff.
Sam pointed his fork at Bucky, leveling him with a glare so fake everyone in the room could see right through it. “You’re the one who moved out.”
Bucky narrowed his eyes and leaned closer to Sam, bracing his hand on the Captain’s thigh and grinning. “Yeah, ‘cause our couch is uncomfortable as fuck.”
Sam barked out a laugh, head tipped back and eyes scrunched shut — Bucky’s gaze practically screamed I’M IN LOVE while he watched. “Man, you picked out that couch!”
“That is false, Samuel; you said ‘I like this one’ and I said ‘okay, babe, pick whichever one you want.’”
Sam scoffed at that, and the two of them fell comfortably into a wave of insults, the scathing words’ meanings completely negated by Bucky’s hand on Sam’s thigh and the matching look of adoration in both of their eyes.
As the couple bickered, the other four Thunderbolts (whom Sam and Bucky had quite obviously forgotten the presence of) exchanged a hushed conversation in a huddle at the other end of the table.
“What,” Ava began, warily eyeing the two men across from them, “the hell.”
Bob shook his head. “Finding out Bucky has a boyfriend was not on my bingo sheet for today.”
“Not to mention the boyfriend being Captain America,” Ava added.
Yelena took a bite of her toast, eyebrows still furrowed and gaze still piercing in Sam’s direction.
“You’re being characteristically quiet over there,” John remarked, tossing a crumpled napkin at her. “Plotting the death of the country’s most famous hero? Lemme tell ya, it won’t go over very well–”
“No,” Yelena said, interrupting his (most likely self-deprecating) upcoming tirade about the government’s treatment of its heroes. “Just thinking of how my dad will react when he–”
As if on cue, the kitchen door slammed open so hard it left a dent in the wall.
Standing in the doorway, wearing nothing –and very obviously nothing– other than a loosely tied, ratty bathrobe, was the Red Guardian.
John looked away, pretending to gag. “Ughh… Alexei, put some clothes on!”
“FRIENDS!” Alexei shouted, lumbering towards the table. “LOOK AT WHAT I HAVE FOUND!” He triumphantly held a large round object above his head like a trophy.
Bucky, looking thoroughly annoyed at Alexei for interrupting his flirting with Sam, rolled his eyes without even glancing at the Guardian’s discovered item. “Alexei, I swear to God if it’s another–”
With a loud CLANG Alexei dropped the Captain America shield onto the table, rattling the cutlery and spilling Bob’s half-empty glass of orange juice.
“IT WAS IN THE LIVING SPACE!” Alexei declared proudly. “JUST LYING ON THE COUCH, AWAITING ITS NEW WORTHY OWNER! AND THAT OWNER WILL BE ME! ALEXEI SHOSTAKOV, THE RED GUARDIAN!” He gasped, as if having a realization (and clearly still not noticing Sam, despite the shield’s true owner sitting and looking rather amused less than three feet away from him). “NO! CAPTAIN RED GUARDIAN!”
Yelena massaged her temples, waving her hand limply in Ava’s direction. Ava had come to realize over time that this motion meant I literally can’t with my father right now, please deal with him.
Ava patted her arm and turned to Alexei to explain (or at least try to), but Bucky shook his head, grinning in a way the other Thunderbolts had never seen (was that mischievousness on their sullen leader’s face??).
“The couch, huh?” Bucky turned to Sam, tone conversational and light as if they were discussing the weather. “I wonder who left it there. If I were Captain America, I’d take good care of that thing and not leave it lying around in random places.”
“Well maybe,” Sam started, eyes glinting with the same mischief and voice feigning the same casual air as Bucky’s, “Captain America was a little distracted last night and put it down in a random spot.”
The others’ eyes darted between the two of them as if watching a particularly exciting game of ping pong. Alexei, bless his naive heart, still had not caught on to the extra person at their breakfast table and was regaling the tale of finding the shield to Yelena, whose head was now fully hidden in her hands.
“What in the world could distract Captain America?” Bucky asked, grin widening as he leaned in closer to Sam.
Sam drummed his fingers against the shield in mock contemplation.
That finally got Alexei to whip his head around and notice him.
“What are you– OH MY GOD!” The moment the realization sparked in the Super Soldier’s eyes, Bob snickered and Yelena let her head drop to the table with a dull thunk. Ava patted her back and chuckled a bit to herself.
“YOU– YOU ARE CAPTAIN AMERICA!” All of the breath seemed to have left Alexei’s lungs. His eyes were as wide as dinner plates, his entire body stiff as a board. “YOU ARE… YOU ARE CAPTAIN AMERICA! THE NEW CAPTAIN AMERICA! WELL, NOT THE ‘NEW’ CAPTAIN AMERICA–” he glanced over at John, whose face grew stormy, “–BUT THE NEW NEW CAPTAIN AMERICA!”
Sam stood up and extended his hand to shake, flashing his most charming Cap smile. “Hi! Sam Wilson. You must be Alexei, right? I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Alexei did not shake Sam’s hand, instead continuing to stare directly at him with his mouth slightly agape.
“You are my sworn enemy,” he finally said, quieter than most of the Thunderbolts had ever heard him speak before. “Captain America. The equally-matched foe of the Red Guardian. You have come… YOU HAVE COME TO CHALLENGE ME AT LAST–”
Now it was Bucky’s turn to stand. “Nope,” he said, stopping Alexei from surging forward (whether with the intent to full-body tackle Sam or rib-crushingly bear hug him from excitement, no one knew) by placing his metal hand on the other Super Soldier’s chest. “There will be no challenging today.”
Alexei looked downright scandalized. “But! Winter Soldier! It is Captain America! My sworn enemy! Surely you understand I must fight–”
Bucky patted Alexei’s shoulder. “I know, buddy. But I’m kind of attached to this Captain America, so I’d rather you not beat the shit out of him.”
Alexei mumbled something in Russian under his breath (forgetting that two other people in the room spoke the language) and flopped down into an empty chair like a petulant toddler. “You are no fun, Winter Soldier. I used to think you are cool, but now I see you are no fun at all. You will not even let me fight my sworn enemy.”
“Well,” Bucky sighed, taking Sam’s still-outstretched hand into his own and sitting back down, “As I said… I’m kinda attached to him. And his face, so I’d prefer it if you didn’t break his nose.”
Alexei’s eyes widened even further as Sam snorted “gee, thanks.”
“You,” Alexei said, voice hoarse with betrayal, pointing an accusatory finger at Bucky. “You are– are… fraternizing with the enemy!”
Yelena groaned something that might’ve been “God please make it end” into the table.
“Winter Soldier,” Alexei continued, wildly gesturing with his hands, “you know I enjoy a tale of passionate lovemaking–”
Sam choked on the coffee he’d just taken a sip of.
Bob muttered, “Oh my God,” into his hands.
John fake-retched again.
Ava whispered, “Please stop talking,” at the same time Yelena groaned, “Papa, I beg of you.”
Alexei, however, was fully committed to the bit. He ranted loudly, in a chaotic mix of both Russian and English, hands gesticulating madly. The others immediately tuned him out, catching only snippets involving “team camaraderie” and “honor” and “the spirit of Mother Russia.”
“Why is he like this,” Yelena whispered, staring dead at the table like if she didn’t move, the embarrassment wouldn’t notice her.
When Alexei began shouting about how “Steve Rogers would never deny a fight with me,” John, wholeheartedly done with the chaos of the morning, stood up, grabbed the shield (and absolutely did not feel the rush of three years’ worth of self-hatred and guilt come rushing back full force when he did, thank you very much), and banged it rather roughly against the back of Alexei’s head. The older Super Soldier slumped in his seat, unconscious, immediately.
John dropped the shield back onto the table like it had burnt him and quickly busied himself with drinking his orange juice (it was 100% actually Bob’s but no one said anything).
Yelena mumbled “thank fuck” into the table at her father’s silence, not even choosing to comment on the way it was attained.
The next few moments passed in awkward silence, broken only by the sound of chewing and forks scraping plates.
Once every plate was empty, Sam stood up to gather them. “Sorry for dropping in on all of you this morning,” he said to the Thunderbolts as he placed the dishes into the sink. “Just figured I’d clear the air if I’m gonna be spending more time around y’all.”
“Um…” Bob began oh-so-eloquently. “Thanks.” He cleared his throat. “It was, uh, nice to meet you.”
Sam smiled warmly as he made his way back to the table. “Nice to meet you t–”
“Yes, yes,” Bucky interrupted, that glint (unfamiliar to the Thunderbolts but ever so familiar to his boyfriend) returning to his eye. He took Sam by the hand and turned towards the others. “It’s been so nice for him to meet all of you, but we, uh… have to take this shield–” he picked up Cap’s famous weapon from the center of the table, gesturing to it as if he could’ve meant any other shield, “–back to my room.” He winked, the meaning behind his words (and desire to return back to his room) 100% not lost on the others. “Don’t wait up.”
Sam rolled his eyes but chuckled fondly as Bucky dragged him out of the kitchen.
Following their abrupt exit, the remaining Thunderbolts sat in stunned silence.
For a long, long, long moment.
Finally, John exhaled slowly. “…Sooo. We’re just pretending this didn’t happen… right?”
A beat.
Bob nodded. “Yup.”
Yelena stabbed a pancake. “If anyone asks, I was not awake today.”
“I’m still not fully convinced I haven’t just died and this is Hell,” Ava said.
John raised his (Bob’s) glass of orange juice in a solemn toast. “To denial?”
The four remaining/conscious, befuddled Thunderbolts all clinked their glasses together.
“To denial.”