Thanks for the tag @abarbaricyalp ❤️
No pressure tagging @jbarneswilson @katatonicimpression @sunsetmaidenwrites
So, I started this months ago, wrote about 2300 words and then kinda forgot about it lol. Hopefully I’ll finish it in 2025!
“Sammy,” Bucky yelled, from where he was sprawled out on their bed. “Your phone’s ringing.”
Sam paused his flossing to yell back:
“The Stark phone, or my phone phone.”
Bucky’s responding sigh was so heavy that Sam heard it all the way in the bathroom, but he only laughed fondly and shook his head. It was before noon on one of their very few and very precious days off, so of course his boyfriend had to act like moving, even a few inches, was going to kill him.
“A name didn’t pop up, and I don’t recognize the number,” Bucky yelled again, and this time there was a frown on his face.
Now, Bucky trusted Sam completely, but there wasn’t a single solitary phone number that called Sam’s personal phone that Bucky wouldn’t recognize, so the fact that he didn’t recognize this one was kind of throwing him for a loop.
“Well, answer it. I’m busy,” Sam said.
He didn’t say it, but the “duh” was heavily implied in Sam’s tone, and it had Bucky successfully sidestepping that loop that had just been threatening to send him spiraling a second ago. Of course Sam wasn’t hiding anything. It was probably just someone calling the wrong number.
“Hello?” Bucky said into the phone, but all he heard in return was dead air.
Bucky pulled it away from his ear to look at the screen. But, yeah, he was right — whoever it was had hung up.
“Humph,” he grunted, to himself. His frown from a moment before returning, this time deeper. “They hung—
He started to shout to Sam again, but then the phone started ringing, again. The same number. Again.
That time he answered it immediately.
“Who is this?” He asked, in lieu of a greeting. There was no mistaking the bite in his voice.
“Who is this?” The voice on the other end responded.
Oddly though, at least in Bucky’s opinion, whoever it was didn’t sound irritated or like he was being a smart-alec. No, he sounded genuinely confused, maybe even a little upset.
It didn’t cut much ice with Bucky though. Some strange man — some strange man who apparently had no idea how phone calls worked — was calling his fiancé’s phone, and hanging up when his fiance didn’t answer. So, of course Bucky’s hackles were all the way up.
“Well, I was trying to call Sammy.” He cleared his throat. “I mean, Samuel Wilson. This is his phone, right?” He asked, somewhat frantically. “They said this was his phone.”
“Buck,” Sam said, finally walking into their bedroom from the en-suite. “Who is it?”
He started to reply, but was cut off by the caller practically yelling into his ear.
“Sammy? Sam, is that you? Put Sam on,” he insisted, sounding near tears. “Please.”
The guy was practically begging at that point. And even though Bucky was confused, even though the whole thing was putting him on the defensive, there was something about the guy’s voice. There was a legitimately desperate quality to it. Like maybe his life depended on getting to speak to Sam at that very moment.
In the end, that’s what made Bucky give Sam the phone.
“It’s for you,” he said, nonsensically.
Sam eyed him strangely, questioningly.
“Put it on speaker,” was all Bucky said in response.
And although Sam looked confused, he still did it before speaking.
“Hello,” he said, somewhat cautiously.
But instead of a reply, the person let out such a pitiful sound, something so close to a sob that Sam wondered if they’d actually started to cry, that the hair on the back of Sam’s neck stood up.
He waited for the person to say something, anything, but all he could hear was the sound of them taking deep shuddering breaths over and over again. And, look, any other time, he probably would’ve chalked it up to a prank call and hung up, but his gut was telling him that this wasn’t some idiot playing a joke; this was somebody who really needed him. So, he tried again.
“Hello?” Sam repeated, voice as gentle as he could make it. “Is everything—
“Sammy,” he cut in, voice heavy with emotion. “Is it really finally—
Before they could get another word out, Sam ended the call. Then he held the phone away from him, eyeing it suspiciously, before tossing it on the bed like he was loath to touch it — almost like he was scared to touch it.
Bucky didn’t know what was going on, but he shot off the bed, suddenly looking at Sam’s cell the way he’d looked at that alien tech they’d run into the last time they helped Monica on a mission.
“Sam, what the hell?” He asked, his gaze flicking back and forth between the phone and Sam’s dazed face. “Who was that?”
“I have no idea,” Sam said, voice flat.
