Not Language but a Map (The Grammar of Sensation) ∘ a Post-TFATWS Fix-it
Stucky, Endgame Fix-it, Road Trip Get Together
Indirect light fills the bedroom with a pearly glow, reflecting off the courtyard walls outside where more of those tangling vines with hundreds of pale star-shaped flowers trail down. They must’ve forgotten to close the curtains after eating room service late in the little private courtyard covered with blue-and-yellow tiles as Bucky lounged in one chair with his bare feet kicked up on another, wearing only those dark sweats low on his hips.
Now, heavy and warm with sleep, Bucky sprawls out against his chest; Bucky, who came back to his bed at some point in the early morning.
Steve skims his knuckles down the long dip of Bucky’s spine: his walking-around miracle, his bad penny.
Read Chapter 7 on AO3
Only the epilogue left to go in this part of the series!
for the would you rather 2: Quiet Pining or Shameless Flirting (thanks for playing!)
2: Quiet Pining or Shameless Flirting
Awwww, thanks for making the game. Since I've already done Shameless Flirting, I'll do Quiet Pining this time 😆 Enjoy! 🥰
***
Quiet Pining
Sam lay on the wooden deck of The Paul and Darlene. He could feel himself breathing with the movement of the waves. Smell the salt air in every deep inhale. Watched the haze of clouds above him.
It wasn't a beautiful day.
It was overcast and a little too muggy.
But Sam didn't care. He liked this. This felt like home.
"I could live here forever," whispered Bucky up at the sky.
They were taking a break. A small break between fixing things on the boat as they did every Saturday now ever since Bucky moved to Delacroix.
Sam treasured these little moments. These points in time where it was just him and Bucky, alone on the boat. Sometimes joking. Sometimes, listening to Marvin Gaye. Sometimes, in comfortable silence.
Sam forgot how easy it was to be with Bucky before this. Before his ghosting Sam. Before how he treated Sam those first few weeks of talking. Before Bucky needed to really work to make Sam trust him again.
How easy it was in Europe. In Birnin Zana. When Bucky living in Delacroix felt like a pipe dream. When Sam moving back home felt like a fantasy.
Sam missed this. His heart ached for silent moments like this where they just smiled at each other.
When Sam felt how much he loved this man.
How much this man probably loved him back.
But still.
Sam needed time before he could admit that. To even trust Bucky again like that.
Sam was sure they would get there, though.
"What?" whispered Bucky curiously, his shirt completely askew as he lay next to Sam on the deck.
"Nothing," said Sam as he stood up, "Let's get back to work."
***
send me one of these would you rather and I’ll make a lil SamBucky micro fic
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Title: Rhythm doesn't make you a dancer
Author: Coriesocks
Rating: T
Wordcount: 3.5k
For my @winterhawkbingo round 3 square: Dancing
Excerpt:
Fucking Sam fucking Wilson, he thinks as he tries to get to the bar with as little human contact as possible. If this doesn’t get Sam off his back, he’s giving up. He officially doesn’t care. Sam can mock him for acting his age as much as he likes. He doesn’t give a shit about dating or hooking up or getting laid or whatever. He’s perfectly happy to retire his dick from service, thank you very much.
Characters: Bucky Barnes, Sam Wilson, Sarah Wilson, AJ Wilson, Cass Wilson
Summary: Sam gets a note, asking for a hostage to stop him meddling with the IFA's plans. If he doesn't, they'll kill everyone in the house. Bucky can't let anything happen to Sarah and the boys.
It’s the middle of the night when there’s a large BANG! outside. Sam’s out of bed immediately, running downstairs, and from the footsteps across the hall, Bucky’s up too. He’s just glad Sarah and AJ and Cass know what to do.
He meets Bucky at the bottom of the stairs, and together, they pad towards the front door, footsteps silent on the carpet.
There’s an envelope resting on the doormat, with the words ‘Captain America’ written on the front in thick black letters.
They exchange a look, and then Bucky stoops to check out the peephole in the front door. He swears.
“What is it?” Sam asks.
Bucky glances at him, and then walks swiftly through the house, looking out the windows. Sam sees people outside, crouching in his garden. They’re holding guns. “Out the front too?”
Bucky nods tersely. “I’m assuming they were behind the noise and the note.”
Sam returns to the door, and picks up the letter. If they’re surrounded, then the people outside wouldn’t need to bother poisoning the paper or something like that. They’d just come in and shoot him.
He flicks the envelope open, and pulls out the paper inside. It’s short and to the point:
Captain America-
Your meddling has gone too far. You have 24 hours to deliver a person of importance to you as hostage to us or everyone in the house will die. The hostage will be returned to you when our business is done provided you do not interfere.
Bucky holds his hand out, and Sam wordlessly passes the note over. Bucky skims it, then looks back outside. “These the IFA guys you were talking about?”
Sam nods. “Yeah, busted two of their bases last week. Apparently they didn’t like that.”
“Do you have an escape tunnel?” Bucky asks. Sam tries to be surprised, but he suspects HYDRA had a fair few escape tunnels that the Winter Soldier escaped down.
“No.”
“So we can’t get Sarah and the boys out. And you can’t fly them out, because they’ll just shoot you out of the air.”
Bucky’s already calculating. So Sam does his own calculating. He checks the landline, then his mobile phone, then his laptop and the television. None of them work. They’re on their own.
Sam goes back upstairs, closely followed by Bucky, up into Sarah’s room. Sam knocks four times on the panel on the side of the bed, ta-ta-ta-ta. It clicks, then folds down, and Sarah crawls out, followed by AJ and Cass.
“What was that about?” Sarah asks. She’s surprisingly calm.
“IFA want a hostage so I stop messing around with them. We’ve got 24 hours,” Sam explains.
“So what do we do?” Sarah asks, practical as always.
“There’s no way in hell I’m letting them take you or AJ or Cass. So you kids-” he points to AJ and Cass, “Go back to sleep. We grown-ups will sort it all out.”
AJ and Cass hesitate, and then run out of the room.
Bucky sits down on the bed. “We’re screwed.”
Sarah snorts. “And what will we do about it?”
“I’ll fly you out tomorrow night,” Sam decides. “Get you across the water.”
“I’ll distract them,” Bucky offers.
“You will do no such thing,” Sam says. “There’s too many of them. You won’t stand a chance.”
Bucky huffs. “So it’s decided then.” He stalks out of the room.
Sarah drops back onto her bed, and pulls a pillow over her head. Sam goes back to his room, to try and sleep. He’ll need all he can get to fly four people over the water. But try as he might, sleep doesn’t come.
-
Bucky waits an hour after the house has gone silent, and then slips out of bed, getting dressed quickly and slipping on his gloves. He sneaks down the stairs, and into the kitchen, where he snatches up a scrap of paper and scribbles a note.
Then, he carefully goes over to the front door, and eases it open. He steps out, hands raised. He counts more than a dozen guns pointing at him.
A man and a woman step forwards, and grab his arms, pinning them behind his back. He doesn’t fight back. He’s just glad his jackets are thick enough to hide his metal arm.
He’s dragged into a van, and forced to his knees in front of grumpy looking guy with a black suit.
“What’s your name?” the man asks him as his wrists are handcuffed behind him. He tries not to laugh. He could break them with a half a thought. Or pick them, if he had something to do it with.
“Jamie,” he answers, hesitating for a second. If they don’t know who he is, then they won’t take the proper precautions.
“Well, Jamie, you made the right decision. If you behave, and the Captain behaves, we’ll have you returned safely.” The man nods to his henchmen, and they gag and blindfold him. He hears a clink as his handcuffs are locked onto the wall of the van. A moment later, the van shudders into motion, driving him away from Sam’s house.
-
At dawn, Sam gives up the idea of sleep, and goes downstairs to check on his wings, and make sure they’re in tip-top shape for the flights tonight. On his way, he looks in on Sarah, who’s awake, with AJ and Cass snuggled into either side. At least they’re asleep. And then he looks in at the study-turned-Bucky’s room. It’s empty.
He rushes downstairs, looks in the living room. Empty. He goes into the kitchen, the bathroom, the laundry, and he still can’t find Bucky.
“Sarah!” he calls, running upstairs. He passes the stairs on his way, and notices another envelope sitting on the doormat. There’s no writing on the outside. It’s a new one. He retraces his steps and picks it up, opening it just as Sarah appears at the top of the stairs. She descends slowly, and rests an arm on his shoulder.
“What’s up?”
Damn her for being able to read him so easily.
The hostage has been received.
Jamie will be returned when we are finished.
Do not come after us.
“Jamie?” she asks. “J-James? As in, Bucky?”
Sam sighs. “I don’t know why he did it.”
Sarah strides into the kitchen and begins making a pot of tea. “There’s nothing you can do about it now. He’s gone to them now. You…we need to get him back.”
The tea finished brewing and Sarah poured it into two mugs, adding a spoonful of sugar to one and a splosh of milk into each. She pushed the sugar one towards Sam, and he took a deep drink.
“First priority is getting the boys out,” Sarah said, moving the papers on the benchtop around. “Send them to Bob’s house. He can look after them.” She began scribbling on a piece of paper.
Sam pulled another piece towards him. “And then we see if we can track their vehicles. It won’t be that simple, but it’s a start.” He flips the paper in his hands over, and falters. “Sarah.”
She looks up. He passes over the third note in less than a day. None of them have been good news.
Sam, don’t get mad. But I couldn’t endanger Sarah and the kids. I know it said ‘someone of importance’, but just pretend for a bit. Don’t worry about me, I can get myself out.
“The idiot!” Sam yells.
“So what are we going to do about it?” Sarah repeats.
Sam glances up at her. “I don’t know.”
-
Bucky sits in the back of the van for hours, his bottom going numb. Finally, he’s dragged out, and he stumbles across the ground, and then he’s shoved up a short ladder. They push him into a seat, and strap him down, his arms still pinned behind him.
He hears the thundering of engines, the wokka-wokka-wokka of helicopter blades rotating. Where were they taking him? To their base, or just somewhere to hold him?
They don’t speak the whole time, probably wary of him, but eventually, they touch down somewhere where he can smell salt and hear the crash of waves. The ocean, then. He’s marched across the landing platform and thrown to the floor of an empty room. He hears the door lock, and then he’s alone.
He scoots back against the wall, and begins to plan. He can get out of this room easily enough, but then what? Destroy the base? Call the police? The fact that these guys haven’t thought to check his pockets, remove his gloves, haven’t noticed he’s got a fucking vibranium arm suggests that they’re complete noobs. Who he should be able to take out easily.
With HYDRA, though, when they took a hostage, they didn’t just lock them in a room and forget about them. No, they’d take the hostage out, and usually send a video back to the other group just to show they were serious.
Wait for that, then. Sit through a minor beating, then escape and mess their stuff up. Maybe steal a helicopter.
He doesn’t have to wait long.
There’s a click, and then the door opens. Someone grabs his shoulder and hauls him into the centre of the room. There’s a few thudding noises, which he guesses is a camera getting set up.
“Ready?” A voice says. It sounds like the suited man in the van. “Action.”
-
Sam’s sitting at the breakfast table with a brand-new laptop when all the screened devices in his house suddenly switch on. He jumps up immediately, going over to the television, which has the biggest screen. He can see Bucky clearly, kneeling in the centre of the room, blindfolded and gagged.
A man in a black suit steps into view. He’s wearing a matching black mask. He turns to the camera. “This is live. I’m glad to see you listened to me, Captain. Our work is almost done, and Jamie will be returned to you soon. But I need you to know we are deadly serious. As in, he will be dead if you interfere.” The suited man suddenly twists and kicks Bucky, who collapses onto his side. Sam could see his back now, could see his wrists, cuffed with…normal handcuffs?
Bucky could break free at any moment and beat the shit out of everyone in that room. Hell, he could probably do it without breaking the cuffs. So why wasn’t he.
The man rested a foot on Bucky’s head, driving into the ground. Bucky let out a grunt.
“I would like your word, Captain,” the man says.
In the view of the camera, a screen flickers to life. It shows Sam’s face, his living room. He can see the confusion on his own face.
“Do not worry, we have only just managed to hack your cameras,” the man reassured him. “But I want your word.”
“Of course,” Sam says.
The man glares at him, then hauls Bucky back up onto his knees. “You see, Jamie,” he begins, then snorts. “Well, I suppose you don’t. But your dear Captain will not give me his word.” He backhands Bucky across the face. “Of course what, Captain?”
“Of course I will not interfere.”
This time the man punches Bucky in the gut.
“Of course I will not interfere with your plans,” Sam corrects. Shit. If he got it right the first time, then they wouldn’t have hurt Bucky like this. “But how do I know you will give him back? How do I know you won’t just keep him as leverage for your next plan? And the one after that?”
“You don’t,” the man replies. “But you don’t have a choice.” He pulls what looks like a cattle prod from his pocket. “And for that-” He drives the point into Bucky’s neck.
Bucky immediately flinches away, but two men come over and hold him still as the prod is moved from his neck, to his face, and then the soles of his feet.
“Leave him alone!” Sam yells. He can tell from how tense Bucky is how much pain he’s in. How he’s doing his best not to cry out in pain. Whether it’s because he doesn’t want to give his captors that satisfaction or to stop Sam from feeling guilty, he doesn’t know, except Bucky’s definitely failing at the second.
The suited man grabs Bucky by his hair, which is longer now than when he first moved in, and wrenches his head up, facing the man even though he’s still blindfolded. “It pains me to do this to you, Jamie, it really does. You seem a good kid. Offering yourself up like this, it takes a lot of courage.”
“I gave you my word, now please stop hurting him,” Sam says. He realises Sarah’s in the room now, hovering at the edge.
The man punches Bucky in the face, and he flops backwards, only staying upright because of the two men holding his arms.
“And you keep making it worse for Jamie!” He punches Bucky again, and again, and again. “Some Captain America you are!”
Sarah lets out a noise of outrage, and Bucky hisses. One of his legs sweeps out, knocking the suited man off his feet. He falls to the floor, flat on his face, but is up immediately. He pulls out the cattle prod.
“You’re going to regret that, Jamie,” he snarls. Bucky instinctively cringes away, but the men hold him in position as the man unleashes a series of blows across his body – across his head, chest, arms, legs and feet. Bucky’s panting by the end of it, evidently struggling. And the fact that he still hasn’t cried out worries Sam, because that suggests that he’s endured a lot worse a lot of times, so that this seems insignificant in comparison.
“Leave him alone!” Sam yells. “You’ve got what you wanted. I’ll stay out of it. I’ve got your message. I know you’re serious. Please, stop hurting him.”
“Since you asked so nicely,” the man says, delivering one last slap to Bucky’s face, and then the screen goes black.
“Let’s go,” Sarah says, hoisting a backpack on her back, and handing him the wings. He doesn’t question, just follows her out. They’re not safe near devices anymore. They walk for almost an hour, and end up in a secluded corner of a park. Sarah pulls out a piece of paper.
“I called a friend, who’s a sort of private investigator. Anyway, she dug this up.” Sarah shows him the paper, which has a map printed on it. Not far off the coast, there is a red cross marked, with the words ‘IFA OR’ written next to it.
“Think you can get us there?” she asks.
They walk into town, and at the first telephone box they find, he calls Torres and organises a helicopter to come and pick them up in an hour.
-
After they’ve ended the call, they go to leave, but Bucky can’t resist one last act of defiance. He repeats the same move from before, kicking the man’s feet out from under him, but then he elbows him in the face.
Of course, they need their revenge for that.
They shoot him in the foot.
He bites down on the gag instead of screaming, and the moment the door’s locked behind them, he jerks his wrists apart, and the chain between the handcuffs snaps easily. He slips a flesh finger beneath the cuff on his left wrist, and pulls it away, then repeats the process on his right wrist, he jumps up, pulling the gag and blindfold away, stuffing the fabric in his pocket in case he needs it later.
A sharp lash of pain through his foot reminds him that he’s just been shot. He twists his leg, bringing his foot up near his face to get a better look. It’s gone through the end, and has missed the major bones and tendons. He pulls the blindfold back out of his pocket and ties it around the hole to stop the bleeding, wincing. Carefully, he puts his heel down, and takes an experimental step. It hurts, but as long as he doesn’t put the front part down, it’s manageable.
He hobbles over to the door, and pulls it clean off its hinges. It makes a loud clatter noise as it hits the floor, but there’s no one outside. They must be all gathered together to finish their final plan. He still doesn’t know exactly what it is. And with the state he was in, it’s fair for them to assume he couldn’t walk, let alone break out.
Too bad for them he’s not a normal human being.
He limps down the hallways, hugging the walls, partly for balance and partly for secrecy. He tries to ignore the bloody smudges his foot’s leaving on the floor. He turns a corner and sees into a large room. There’s at least two dozen people gathered inside, crowded around a large glowing thing.
He doesn’t want to know what that is.
He slips across the hall, hoping none of them will glance his way. He accidentally puts the front of his injured right foot down and squeezes his eyes shut against the pain. He heads further down the corridor, and finds a flight of stairs. He climbs them, and with the layout of the lower floor in mind, he heads across until he’s right above the hall with the glowing thing inside it.
Luckily for him, it also happens to be a control room. And this base is actually on oil rig.
Oil…that means they’re probably going to blow something up. And he has to stop them. He goes over to the wall, which is covered in levers and buttons and none of them have labels and of course he’s not lucky enough to have a monologuing villain to point out the use of every single button.
So he takes hold of the biggest lever, and pulls it.
The lights dim, turning red, and a siren blares.
“EMERGENCY LOCKDOWN INITIATED,” a voice from the ceiling announces. It vaguely reminds him of Vision.
He runs out of the room before someone comes to see what (or who) caused the lockdown, limping into a room just across the hallway.
Unluckily for him, the suited man is waiting inside. Bucky lunges forwards, but he’s too late; the man pistol-whips him across the face, and he collapses. The man retreats a few steps, pointing the gun at him.
“It was you that set off the lockdown, wasn’t it, Jamie?” the man says. “I don’t know how you managed to escape, but soon our plan will be right back on target.”
Unwilling to get involved in the villain monologue, Bucky pushes himself to his feet, and runs across the room as best he can. The man’s obviously unwilling to kill him (and destroy his leverage) so he makes it to the window, although he hears footsteps behind him. He pulls back his left arm and punches through the glass, then flips himself out, until he’s hanging by his fingertips from the sill.
He glances down, and sees he’s four floors up. Oh well. He lets go, and a second later he hits the ground, rolling to try and minimise damage. He hears gunshots from the window, but he’s already running, seeking cover behind a massive metal column.
The gunshots stop, and he peeks out from behind the column. There’s no one in sight, so he darts over to the next column, then the next, then the next, making his way across the rig.
After several minutes, the alarm shuts off, and orders boom out over the PA system, telling him exactly where they’re gonna be looking for him; sweeping through the building from top to bottom, and then fan out over the rig.
Yep. They’re noobs.
He begins to climb up the column, digging in his vibranium hand, gouging out chunks. Hopefully by the time they’re noticed, he’ll be out of there. He makes it to the top, and jumps to the next column. Something in his knee breaks, and he slips, banging his injured foot on the pillar. He slips a few feet down, then takes a deep breath, and begins climbing again.
He’s made it to a fourth column when they get out of the building, and begin marching across the concrete. Thankfully, they don’t think to look up, and see if he’s jumping from column to column like a big cat.
Eventually, the line of searchers move past him, and he slides back down to the ground. He hobbles along until he gets to a ramp leading up to the next level. Sticking to the outside edge and clinging to the railing, he climbs one, two, three, four levels, until he’s level with the top of the main building. He moves back over to the other side, assessing the building.
If he climbs one more storey, he’ll be able to jump down onto the roof, and maybe climb in a window. He does just that, and is about to step into a metal beam to begin his assent, when:
“Stand down!” There’s a cocking of guns behind him, and suddenly, he’s surrounded by guards.
How did he not hear them coming?
But he’s got two choices. Fight them, reveal he actually knows what he’s doing, run even with his busted knee and shot foot, and hopefully make it to a helicopter. His foot throbs, and he takes the second (and hopefully smarter) option: he drops to his knees, and places his hands on his head. The ring closes in around him, and someone cuffs his hands again.
They don’t learn, do they?
They drag him to his feet, heedless of his injuries, and make him walk back down the ramp, and into the building again.
“Take him to Nicholson,” one of them orders, and the rest of the guards taper off, leaving the two holding his arms.
He ends up in a room with a smashed window, and he realises it’s the one he jumped out of. The push him to the floor, and someone sets a camera up. The suited man, who Bucky realises is Nicholson, turns to the camera. “Let’s begin.”
-
Sam’s only been on the helicopter for twenty minutes when his phone switches on and a live video of Bucky appears. He looks considerably worse than last time – has he been shot? But he’s alive, and Sam’s on his way.
“You’ll be glad to hear, Captain, that it’s not your fault I’m calling this time. It’s Jamie’s. I just thought you might appreciate it.”
“Don’t hurt him,” Sam says immediately. “I’ll do whatever you, want, just don’t hurt him.”
The man snorts. “This is his punishment.”
“It’s fine, Sam, I deserve this,” Bucky says, “Brought it on myself, trying to escape.”
Bucky looks like he actually believes it.
And then suddenly he rolls away from the guards, and yells, fast as he can: “Nicholson. Oil rig. No coast in si-”
He’s cut off by the suited man (Nicholson?) hitting him on the head so hard he falls over, and then one of his henchmen tie a gag in Bucky’s mouth.
Bucky begins blinking slowly, purposefully. Sam recognises it immediately for what it is – Morse code. It’s what all soldiers are trained to do if they’re captured, if they’re forced to do something under duress.
‘G-H-T,’ Bucky blinks, and then Nicholson’s grabbing his shoulder, pulling him away and tying a blindfold over his eyes.
“Stop trying to communicate,” Nicholson hisses, slapping Bucky across the face. “If you behave, we may consider returning you to your Captain when we’re done.”
“You said it’s dependent on me staying out!” Sam yells. Never mind that he’s not staying out. They don’t know that.
“And Jamie’s good behaviour. But let us think of his misbehaviour, now.” Nicholson pulls out a short knife, and cuts away the fabric at the top of Bucky’s right jeans leg. Bucky leans away from him.
“He broke out of his room.” Nicholson’s hand darts out and cuts a deep slash across Bucky’s thigh. Bucky grunts in pain.
“He spied on our business.” Another cut, another grunt.
“He activated emergency lockdown.” Bucky’s face is paler than it should be, and there’s a growing pool of blood on the floor.
“He broke a window.” There’s barely any skin left on Bucky’s right thigh. Nicholson cuts away the fabric at the top of his left leg.
“He damaged our columns.” Sam’s brow furrows in confusion, but then he’s distracted but Nicholson cutting Bucky again. Bucky whimpers.
“He tried to escape my guards.” Bucky’s blood spurts up, splattering his face and Nicholson’s.
“And he is now making a mess on my floor.” Bucky looks up indignantly, as Nicholson cuts him for the final time. His thighs are a mess of ravaged flesh.
“Now stay there,” Nicholson snarls. He stabs the knife right through Bucky’s calf muscle, and by the amount sticking back out, some of it must be embedded in the floor, too.
They must have really shitty floors.
With one last blow to Bucky’s head, causing him to collapse, his leg at an odd angle, Nicholson leaves.
The screen goes black once again.
-
Bucky hears Nicholson leave, but not the two guards. They must have stayed to watch him. They must be learning. Unfortunately for them, they haven’t learned enough. Enough to not leave him with a knife, even if it’s currently pinning his leg to the floor.
He lies on his back for several minutes, then pulls his wrists apart, breaking the chain again. He listens, but the breathing of the two guards hasn’t changed. They didn’t hear. One’s near the door, and the other’s near the window, if his mental map of the room is correct.
He sits up, biting back a scream of pain, black spots dancing in his vision. He pulls the blindfold off. Both guards are standing side-on to him. Somehow they haven’t noticed his movement yet. Or aren’t worried about it.
Bucky braces himself, then pulls the knife out of his calf. He glances around the room, and sees a heavy book sitting on the desk, about three metres away from him. Then he moves.
He throws the knife, and it hits precisely where he aimed: in the neck of the door guard. He stands, runs at the desk, picks up the book, and clobbers to window guard on the head with it. They fall like a sack of shit.
He retrieves the knife, then busts the door open. Maybe it’s adrenaline, maybe it’s something else, but he’s numb to his injuries. He runs down the corridor at full speed. None of the guards he meets (whether there’s one of them or ten of them) are any match for him, especially after he picks up guns from the second and third.
He opens every door he passes until he comes to some sort of armoury. In there, he finds timed bombs with a detonator. He takes that, and some grenades. As he continues through the building, he places them every so often, until he finally makes it back down to the room with the glowing weapon. It’s chock full of people. He doesn’t bother finding cover, just chucks a few grenades (stun, flash or explosive, he doesn’t know), and then barges in. He hears shooting, and faintly, he feels something bite through his shoulder. His arm. Scrape his elbow. Graze his face, his ear. He ignores them, focused on placing his explosives. If he’d been in a different frame of mind, he might have noticed that it was glowing blue, like the Tesseract.
He sprints out of the room, blood flowing freely from the dozens of holes in his body, causing him to slip. As he runs up the ramp from earlier, his blood-slick fingers struggle to press the detonate button. But he manages it, eventually, and he’s thrown several metres as it goes off. He continues running for the helicopter, but then he realises: he’s blown up his supports. The oil rig he’s standing on will fall into the ocean, taking him with it.
Maybe he might actually die, this time.
He runs faster, the concrete collapsing beneath his feet, and he makes it to the helipad just as the far edge crumbles away, taking the lone helicopter with it.
That’s it. He’s lost hope of escape. Until…
wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka
There’s another helicopter coming. The sound’s getting closer. It touches down mere metres away from him, and he stumbles towards it, pulling his gun out.
The door opens, and the pilot climbs out, steps towards him. He raises his gun, but then the rig shakes, and he drops it, falling onto his side.
“Bucky?” the pilot says. It registers vaguely with him. Does he know a Bucky?
“Fuck. You’re a mess. Come and get in,” the pilot says, reaching for him. He shies away, but the pilot grabs him, and carries him gently into the helicopter, setting him down on the seat.
The pilot presses a few buttons, and then they’re taking off. Just before he falls unconscious, he sees tears gleaming in the pilot’s eyes.
--
Bucky’s a mess. There’s no other way to put it. And until they get home, there’s not much Sam can do about it.
He pulls the gag out of Bucky’s mouth. It’s black fabric and with the longer hair, it reminds him of the Winter Soldier. It’s strange Bucky didn’t think to remove it. He pulls out his lockpicks, and carefully removes the snapped cuffs from Bucky’s wrists. They’re pink and swollen, the skin broken at one point, but compared to the rest of him, they’re quite mild.
Sam wishes he thought to bring more than a mediocre first aid kit with only two bandages, but they were in a rush and Bucky hadn’t been that injured at the time.
Sam carefully pulls Bucky’s jackets off, and that exposes yet more wounds. He wraps the bandages around the Bucky’s thighs, and then begins ripping his own shirt into strips. He ties them as tightly as he safely can around Bucky’s arms, calf, foot, knee and chest, and then calls Sarah.
“What happened?” she asks.
“Bucky’s hurt really badly. I-I’m honestly surprised he’s still alive. But the IFA are all gone now, so you’re safe to go back home. I’ll see you in a couple of hours.” He hangs up. Now he just needs to make sure Bucky survives that long.
The flight is uneventful, and they land in a cul-de-sac two streets away from Sam’s house. As he lifts Bucky out of the helicopter and carries him bridal-style down those streets, he wonders what the neighbours will think.
Sarah opens the door when he gets to their yard, and ushers him inside. He places Bucky on the lounge. AJ and Cass look horrified.
“What happened?” AJ asks.
Sam pulls out the full first aid kit from the cupboard while Sarah begin filling a basin with warm water.
“You read the note the IFA sent. Bucky gave himself up to them, and while they had him, they tortured him.” It hurts Sam to tell the boys this, but they need to know the truth. He can’t wrap them in cotton wool forever.
Sarah sets the basin down on the floor. Sam picks up a facewasher, and dunks it in. He pulls away the bandage on Bucky’s left thigh. He hears Sarah take AJ and Cass away, saying “Call me if you need anything.”
Bucky startles awake the moment the flannel touches his leg. “Sam!”
“Shh, it’s okay,” Sam says soothingly.
Bucky narrows his eyes. “Don’t patronise me, Samuel.”
“Okay, Jamie,” Sam says. Bucky snorts.
Bucky reaches out for the flannel. “I can do that.”
Sam pulls it away. “The thing is, you don’t have to. It’s a lot easier if I do it.”
Bucky settles back onto the lounge, adjusting a cushion under his head. “If you insist.”
They sit in silence for several minutes, as Sam cleans and bandages Bucky’s wounds. Most of them require stitches, but Bucky suffers silently, staring up at the ceiling, face tight.
When Sam leans back, gathering up the discarded bloody cloths, Bucky grabs his arm, halting him.
He takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry for doing that. For making you come and rescue me.”
Sam’s so shocked that he can’t speak for a moment. “I’m sorry you had to go through that. None of that was your fault, you hear me? None of it. So don’t you dare apologise. I hate that you did it, that you suffered like that since I can’t protect my own family, but I will be forever grateful to you for keeping Sarah and AJ and Cass safe. So thank you. And I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault, Sam,” Bucky says immediately, predictably. “It was my choice.”
“Let’s just agree to never let this happen again,” Sam says, moving over to the lounge and pulling Bucky into a hug, carefully avoiding his injuries. “Thank you again.”
“It’s nothing,” Bucky says, looking away.
“It’s not nothing,” Sam says. His hand drops to his pocket, and he begins fiddling with the black fabric inside it.
“I’ve had worse.”
“Doesn’t mean this time didn’t hurt.”
Bucky doesn’t answer, which means he’s struggling to disagree.
Sam’s about to go and get some food, because he doubts Bucky was fed, when-
“I was turning back into the Winter Soldier.”
Sam freezes. Bucky continues, still determinedly not looking his way. “I don’t think they were HYDRA, not directly, but I was going back into the mindset. Of ‘let nothing jeopardise the mission’. I didn’t notice getting shot, apart from my foot.”
Sam doesn’t know how to answer that, but Bucky keeps going.
“D’y-do you think I’m really fixed?” Bucky asks.
“You never will be,” Sam says. Bucky’s head snaps around to him, looking a mix of shocked and hurt. “There’s no such thing as ‘fixed’. But there is ‘better’. And I know you’re getting better.”
Bucky sniffs and nods. “Okay.”
Sam’s not quite sure Bucky believes him, but when he leaves and comes back with a bowl of pumpkin soup, Bucky demolishes it, not even bothering with a spoon but just drinking it all in one mouthful. AJ and Cass have come back, and they look amazed and in awe, in the way only little boys can be, while Sarah just looks concerned.
She passes Bucky a pile a ham and cheese sandwiches, and he digs into those too. “Thanks, Sarah.”
“Thank you,” she says, “for keeping my boys safe.”
Bucky smiles. It’s genuine, and makes Sam’s heart fill with warmth.
“All in a day’s work, ma’am,” he says.
Sam turns his laugh into a cough. Bucky glares at him.
Cass walks over to Sam, and pokes him. “When will Uncle Bucky be all healed again?”
Sam glances over at Bucky, who’s got tears gleaming in his eyes. “Uncle Bucky will be healed very soon.”
“A day or two,” Bucky clarifies, his voice surprisingly steady.
“And then you’ll show us how to make a booby trap like you promised?” Cass asks.
“As long as it’s okay with your mum,” Bucky says, shooting a nervous glance at Sarah.
“Provided you don’t use them on anyone, including the neighbours, and dissemble them when you’re done, go wild,” she says. “But now we’re going to leave Uncle Bucky to rest, so he gets all better faster.”
AJ and Cass groan, but they follow her out of the room. Sam takes Bucky’s plate and bowl away, bringing back a glass of water which he sets on the coffee table, within Bucky’s reach. He unfolds a blanket, spreading it over Bucky, who snuggles down and shuts his eyes like he’s preparing to sleep.
“I still don’t know whether to kiss you or kill you for that stunt you pulled,” Sam says.
Lost Vocabularies that Might Express (The Memory of These Broken Impressions) ∘ a Post-TFATWS Stucky Fix-it
Stucky, Endgame Fix-it, Road Trip Get Together
Bucky presses him up against the inside of the door. All Steve can do is drop his bag, get his hands into Bucky’s thick soft hair, and let Bucky kiss him stupid.
Bucky tries to wind the kiss down and pull back, though his warm hand keeps cupping, dragging, smoothing over Steve from jaw to shoulder and Bucky falls deeper in the tilted press of open mouths with a groan that makes Steve tug a fistful of his hair but not hard. He wants to feel Bucky tip up his chin, leaning back into his touch and exposing the line of his throat to Steve’s mouth for slow kisses dragged down, jawline to collarbone, where Steve lightly sets his teeth. Bucky shivers.
Read Chapter 3 on AO3
And a big thanks to my betas @village-skeptic, @booksandabeer and @zenaidamacrouras1 🥰
Not Language but a Map (The Grammar of Sensation) ∘ a Stucky Post-TFATWS Fix-it
Stucky, Endgame Fix-it, Road Trip Get Together
Bucky tosses him the keys with a simple “you know the area” but then he pauses. A streetlight edges his dark hair with a warm glow, silhouetting his body and casting a shadow over his face. Bucky is too aware and too well-trained not to know: he wants to watch, Steve realizes, and not be seen.
“You said you’d take a rain check.”
There’s something curled up in Bucky’s voice, not neutral this time, but a sort of quiet that’s wound up all tense the way the biggest silence on earth is the space between rounds of shelling at night.
Steve leans back against the side of the car, shoving his hand with the keys into his pocket.
“Yeah, Buck.” He swallows and then tips his chin up. “Yeah, I did.”
The distance isn’t much. Two steps and Bucky is close enough that the warmth of his body layers over the humid summer night, all this city-trapped heat with nowhere to go.
Bucky’s thumb touches his chin. His fingertips rest lightly at the turn of Steve’s jaw and just beneath.
