Archive of Our Own

Sam owns about a duffel bag’s worth of stuff, after being on the run for two years, and Bucky owns even less, so moving in to their new place is pretty low-hassle. Unfortunately, that means that they have literally nothing in the way of furniture or cooking supplies or even a shower curtain.

They decide to christen the little apartment by eating takeout Chinese food on the hardwood floor of what’s supposed to be their living room, watching Great British Bake Off on Sam’s phone, because it’s the only show that he routinely keeps downloaded on his Netflix account. Sam attempts to teach Bucky how to use chopsticks, but he keeps dropping the wontons and then having to dive to catch them before they hit the grimy floor, so they abandon that pursuit and Bucky eats everything with his fingers instead. They don’t have forks.

It’s still fun, and thankfully neither of them are that torn up about not having a bed yet, their time in the military making it easy to curl up under a couple of unwashed towels and still somehow get a decent night’s sleep. The sense of security might have something to do with it-- Bucky loved being in Wakanda, but he always felt the slightest bit out of place and unwelcome there, and Sam hasn’t had a proper home since D.C. They’re still not the best of friends, or anything, but being together helps, too, finding a comforting presence in one another as they lay silently.

Waking up the next morning to striking sunlight beaming right onto Sam’s face through the windows with no blinds, he resolves to immediately make a list of everything they’ll need for the beginning of their existence as civilized members of society. Number one is a couch, because that can serve the triple purpose of being a kitchen table, lounging area, and place to sleep for the time being. He mentions this to Bucky, who groggily rubs his eyes open about an hour after Sam, and he vaguely nods his head. Sam isn’t totally sure if he knows what he agreed to, but he’ll take it anyways.

So they go to the library, caps and sunglasses in place, and start surfing Craigslist.

Neither of them are up for the idea of strolling into an Ikea and dropping a couple thousand dollars of the frankly massive inheritance Steve left them, when they can just as easily find a dumpster couch on sale online for thirty bucks. It turns out that Bucky is a staggeringly good negotiator, emailing rapidly back and forth with a possible seller until the price has gone down to just eight dollars and Sam decides to live in the blissful existence of not knowing what horror-movie threats Bucky used in order for that to happen.

When they go to pick it up, the seller looks like he definitely recognizes them, but stays silent as they chuck the couch into the back of Sam’s truck without tying it down.

The advantage of being roommates with a super-soldier, Sam learns, is that carrying a couch up four flights of stairs is pretty easy when you can pretend to be pulling your weight but actually just kind of place your hands under the bottom and let them do the real grunt work, none the wiser. Placing the couch down in the middle of the living room, Sam and Bucky step back to admire their day’s hard work, and Bucky immediately cracks up.

“What, man?” Sam asks. “I think it’s a pretty decent couch.”

“We don’t even have fucking plates, Sam,” Bucky guffaws. “Or hand soap. Or, fuck, toilet paper. But we have this fucking couch.”

“I went at the library,” Sam reminds him. “Did you not? Have you been holding it all day, dude?”

“I’m going to the grocery store. Order pizza for dinner this time, and if you get pineapple on it I’m going to Winter Soldier your car for the second time,” Bucky announces, pulling his baseball cap back down onto his head.

“You better fucking not, I just bought that truck! Her name is Abigail and if you hurt her, I’ll Winter Soldier your face. I’ll cut your hair in your sleep, bitch,” Sam fires back.

“We don’t have any fucking scissors!”

Eventually, they sort it out, and the apartment becomes a livable space. Their fridge still has a lot of microwavable meals, the third bedroom is more of a weapons storage area than a place for guests to sleep, and they never do get a shower curtain, but it works. Sam gets used to being around Bucky, and Bucky gets used to being around another person, period.

There are awkward moments, like once when Sam wakes up shivering from a bad nightmare and goes to the kitchen to make himself tea, but Bucky is already there, munching on cereal straight from the box and looking harrowed. On the other side of it, though, there are really surprisingly hilarious and genuinely fun moments, like watching Black Mirror together after a battle while Sam rests up and then both being too terrified to sleep, instead deciding to take a little stroll around the neighborhood and ending up stopping three separate muggings.

They work better together than Sam thought they would. After everything with Thanos, being gone for five years and then having to say goodbye to Steve right afterwards, it had felt natural for the two of them to move in together and restart their lives, both needing solace in the only other person who would truly understand what they lost.

As time passes, their bond eases far past that, tentative friendship becoming a partnership, and then, well.

Bucky kisses Sam for the first time one year and four months later.

It had been a particularly brutal mission, and although Sam knows he’s the best Captain America he can possibly be, he’s not a super-soldier. He takes hits harder than Steve ever did, and that’s just a fact. He has to take time when he gets home to just sprawl out on their Craiglist couch, close his eyes, and let Bucky wrap bandages around the worst of his injuries.

It doesn’t feel like a blow to his abilities, when they do it like this. It just feels like Bucky wanting to take care of him, which is nicer. Today, a college baseball game is on TV, so they turn that on and naturally the trash talk starts.

“You know, I used to play baseball in high school?” Sam tells Bucky, who is carefully splinting his left wrist.

“Yeah? Were you any good?”

“Of course I was, I’m the shit. I was an outfielder. We went to the state champs and won the game in the last inning because of me, I got the number one hitter out.”

“This sounds a lot like the plot of a Christian baseball movie. I really feel like you’re lying to me right now.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Sam swats at Bucky’s head with his one good wrist. “Are you calling me a liar?”

“No, I just think you’re fucking with me. Which one of us tried to convince the other that Sharknado was based on a true story, again?” Bucky says, pulling back to stare Sam down with a cutting glare.

“Listen, it’s really not my fault that you believed that, I didn’t even say anything one way or another and you’d already run with it, so what was I supposed to do, tell you sorry, you can stop your frantic Googling, shark tornadoes are only real in your imagination?”

And then Bucky’s mouth was on his, and Sam was sighing into the kiss, already moving his good hand to clutch at Bucky’s hair and pull him up to straddle Sam’s thighs. There was no hesitation in the kiss on either of their parts, but there was no urgency either, Sam simply humming as Bucky’s tongue shoved into the back of his throat.

“This is nice. What brought this on?” Sam questions when they break for air.

“You’re fucking funny, and I just wanted to kiss you,” Bucky shrugs. He’s hiding it well, but he’s self-conscious. Sam knows exactly what to do about that.

“I always want to kiss you,” Sam breathes, and then they’re coming together again, equally as passionate as before.

In the same way that it took them a while to be friends, they don’t jump into a serious relationship right away, first mostly being their usual selves with just a little bit more kissing than usual. They go to couples’ therapy once, to talk about Riley and why Sam is hesitant to commit so fast, and that helps, too.

They wait for each other, though. They want to be together, so they work on it. Bucky gets better with casual touches, no longer darting to the opposite side of the kitchen when Sam touches the small of his back to move past him. Sam figures out how to communicate his needs to Bucky in a way that doesn’t make either of them feel like they have no idea what they’re doing here. Instead of saying you never want me to stay with you after a nightmare, and it drives me fucking crazy, he says I want to comfort you when you have a bad night.

They’re not perfect. Bucky is still the human disaster who ate Chinese food with his fingers that one time, and Sam is never giving up on his ongoing con to make Bucky think that Home Alone is about real events that were a big scandal back in the 90’s and caused revolutionary child protection laws to be passed.

Somehow, it works.