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The rough dirt of the bridle path kept vanishing away under their feet, Sam’s sneakers going next to his. “I just,” Steve said, staring down at them intently. Keeping pace with Sam was always more of a mental than a physical exercise, but today, it was a serious challenge not to just take off running at top speed. And keep on going through the Bronx. And possibly never come back. “I thought maybe we should. Talk.”
“Anytime, man, you know that,” Sam said immediately. “Should we take a break?”
“No!” Steve said hurriedly, because this way he didn’t have to look at Sam’s face.
“Uh huh,” Sam said. “See, this is how I got the impression you wanted to not talk,” and Sam wasn’t wrong; talking about this was the last thing Steve wanted to do. Well, it was the next to last thing. The real last thing he wanted to do was keep worrying that he’d—that he’d—
He took a deep breath. “Are you—did—you’re not—hurt?”
“Dude, I’m out here running around the park, I’m fine,” Sam said. He looked over, frowning; Steve locked his eyes onto a distant streetlamp up ahead of them. “Are you saying you don’t remember what happened?”
“No,” Steve said. “No, I—I remember.” He remembered all of it, in perfect loving detail: remembered Sam groaning low and breathless under him, saying, “Oh, yeah,” moving with him, gasping.
“Okay,” Sam said. “Something gave you the idea you hurt me?”
“No,” Steve said, a little strangled, because, well, no. He was pretty sure he hadn’t hurt Sam at all.
“Did I hurt you?” Sam asked.
“No,” Steve said, and that was a whole other set of technicolor-vivid memories. “No, definitely not.” He swallowed.
After that, Sam stayed quiet for another quarter of a mile, the early sun poking little by little through the trees and buildings clustered thickly to the east. Finally he said, “Listen, man, if I’m not hearing you right, you tell me, okay? If you’re freaked out, we can work on that, and we’ll get through it. But if you’re just worrying, here’s what I’ve got to say: you didn’t get hurt, and I didn’t get hurt. We can close the book on it right there. It was a messed-up situation, but messed-up things happen to us in this gig all the time. I don’t feel any need to go borrow more trauma than comes my way naturally.”
Steve stared at the ground for another long stretch, trying to decide if that was right; if they really could just be okay. He still couldn’t look Sam in the face, but he felt better. Mostly. “It just seems like—it should mean something,” he said plaintively.
“Well, I guess it does,” Sam said, after a thoughtful moment. “Means you’re not a virgin anymore.”
Steve stumbled and nearly fell over his own feet and had to take a couple of quick jumps to catch back up with Sam. “I wasn’t a—!”
“Oh, you’re telling me you’d known the sweet loving of a man before?” Sam said, and sighed theatrically as Steve spluttered next to him. “Typical: you give a man five orgasms, he doesn’t call, doesn’t text—”
“We live together!” Steve yelped in protest.
“You could’ve at least made me breakfast,” Sam said.
“You know,” Steve said, in rising indignation, “I seem to remember me doing a whole lot of the work.”
Sam waved an airy, dismissive hand at him. “I was directing.”
“Oh, you were directing,” Steve said. Sam looked over at him and grinned, and Steve realized he was glaring right at Sam—and it was okay. They were just fine, impossibly they were fine, and Steve stopped short in the middle of the path and blurted out, “Sam.”
Sam stopped too and turned around, hands on his hips as he caught his breath.
“Sam,” Steve said, eyes stinging with relief and gratitude. “Thank you.”
“Yeah?” Sam said, smiling at him. “For what?”
“For—for being easy,” and then he said hurriedly, “Wait, no—” but it was too late, Sam’s whole body was crumpling up with laughter, so he had to brace against his knees as he doubled over, and Steve started laughing too, helplessly, yelling, “That’s not what I meant!”
“That better not be what you meant!” Sam said, strangled. “Screw you, man, it took advanced alien chemistry and supersoldier technology put together to land me!” and they were both off into whoops again, until finally they collapsed onto one of the benches along the path, wiping their faces.
“I meant,” Steve said, “Sam, I meant—” He stopped and took a deep breath, because he wanted to say this; he wanted to get the words right, to try and let Sam know. “Sometimes these days, it feels like everything’s hard,” he said finally. “Like I just don’t fit. And I don’t—I’m not complaining. I’m okay. It beats being frozen in the Arctic. But with you, it’s not hard. It just works. Even the craziest damn things, the stuff that should be hard—like this of all things; this should be hard, and it’s not. You make it easy. So. Thank you. That’s—what I wanted to say.”
Sam was looking at him with soft warm eyes while he got it out, and when Steve finished, he stood up and beckoned. “Okay, come on.” Steve stared up at him, puzzled. “I’m sorry, man, I know I’m all sweaty, but if you don’t want to hug it out, you can’t go making me a speech like that. Come on,” and Steve laughed and stood up and went into Sam’s arms. Sam hugged him tight, strong and hard and loving, and it was the best Steve had felt in—well, okay, the sex the other day had been pretty fantastic, but this beat it all hollow, because this was a choice, Sam choosing to hold him, and Steve closed his eyes and hugged him back just as tight.
#
They took an hour in the Avengers Tower weight room after the run, showered off, made breakfast together in their apartment, and settled in over the tabletop computer to run some tactical analysis. Just another day, another good one. Steve wasn’t sure when the days had started to be good more often than not, but somehow they had, without him even noticing. But today he did notice, and Steve took a moment to really feel his gratitude: to be here, with the city shining in, with a friend. With a mission he felt good about, as impossible as it seemed sometimes, and wanting to come home after.
And it was a home: that had happened somewhere along the way, too. He looked across the table at Sam, bent serious and thoughtful over the potential flight vectors the system had calculated, dragging the lines back and forth across the field. Tony had offered them separate places, but they’d both preferred to have a roommate in the cavernous Tower apartments. Steve had been happier from the first day they’d moved in together than he’d ever been in that half-empty place he’d had in DC, with the spare bedroom reminding him every time he went past the door that he didn’t have anybody to come for a visit. He loved the feeling of coming home to a place with another human being in it, somebody who left his keys by the door and wrote stuff on the grocery list and sometimes made dinner and sometimes ate your cooking. Somebody whose life would be worse, day to day, if you dropped off the face of the earth. Again.
The whole world seemed a brighter place with that under his feet. People smiled at him more. Steve had real conversations now, with everyone around him, the receptionists and the security guards. Back in SHIELD, everyone had been polite and professional, careful not to cross the line, and it hadn’t just been because half of them were Hydra. He’d learned everyone’s names, but he’d felt vaguely like an officer doing it. Now he felt like a person, asking Michelle what she’d done over the weekend, and able to answer back: Sam and I went to the design museum; Sam and I biked to Rockaway Beach; Sam and I caught that new movie, did you see it?
Sam glanced up, caught him looking. “Penny for ’em?”
“Nothing,” Steve said, then decided what the hell. “Just, this is what I was worried about.”
“This isn’t going anywhere, man,” Sam said, simply.
“I know,” Steve said, his throat tight with gladness. “I just got worried. The therapist kept talking like—like the sex was some horrible problem.” He snorted. “Hell, I’d have sex with you again any time.”
He heard the words coming out of his mouth even as he said them, putting a hand over his face and laughing at himself. “I’m just going to keep my mouth shut the rest of the day.”
“Excuse me, nothing funny about that,” Sam said in lofty tones. “Just means you’re a man of excellent taste and judgment.”
“That’s what it means, huh?” Steve said.
“Hey, some people just have it going on,” Sam said, spreading his arms wide. “Don’t worry, baby, you did just fine. I’d lay you again, too.”
“Thanks, glad to know I measure up,” Steve said dryly, and looked back down at the tac screen, smiling.
#
Steve spent the next two days feeling pretty happy about his life for once, and then that was when he got a cryptic email in his inbox from Bucky, one of his usual: coordinates, come alone, bring guns. Steve sat heavily at the desk in the living room, staring at it, trying to figure out what he was feeling, because he was sure feeling something.
“Hey,” Sam said, hand on his shoulder, low and worried, and Steve realized abruptly he was crying—
“Hey,” Sam said again, gently, hooking over a chair to sit down next to him, and Steve wiped tears off his face with the heel of his hand and turned towards him. Sam didn’t keep him at arm’s length; he pulled him close, rubbed Steve’s back and shoulders. “You want to tell me what’s going on?” He paused a moment and then said, “Bucky?”
“Yeah,” Steve said, scratchily. He leaned back and wiped his face again. “I’ve got to—go to him.”
Sam nodded. “You want me to come?”
“If you do, he won’t even show,” Steve said, and suddenly he realized—he did want Sam to come. Because if he did, Bucky wouldn’t show. Probably Bucky would never email him again. “Jesus,” Steve said, his voice cracking, and put his face in his hands. He didn’t want to go.
It was going to be more of the same: another brutal anonymous mission where he wouldn’t know the objective or what the people he was killing had done. And then one day he’d wake up and Bucky would be gone again. Bucky didn’t really want him; Bucky only called when he needed backup, tolerated him only as long as necessary. And Christ, Steve didn’t want to do it anymore. He wanted to help Bucky, to bring him home, to take care of him. But Bucky didn’t want any of that. Bucky would let Steve help him kill people, but he wouldn’t take so much as a glass of water from his hands without looking into it suspiciously. It felt so damn useless: trying to prove that Bucky could trust him, trying to prove he trusted Bucky; searching Bucky’s face trying to find the scraps of somebody he’d loved.
Steve didn’t want to go. He was going anyway, that wasn’t in question. But he didn’t want to go to Bucky, and he didn’t know what the hell to do with that.
Sam said after a moment, gently, “Listen, man, I’m going to ask you something.”
“Yeah.”
“If Bucky asked you to get him a bag of heroin to shoot up, would you do it?”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Furthest thing from,” Sam said. “Saying no to somebody you love, in pain, asking you to help them? But it’s okay to decide that you can’t help the way they want you to. It’s okay to say, here’s what I can do for you, and here’s what I can’t do. It’s not easy, nothing like easy. But sometimes it’s the only thing you can do.” He put a hand around the back of Steve’s neck, a gentle grip. “Be careful out there, okay? I’m going to go grab you medical and food. Get the rest of your stuff.”
Steve leaned in, rested his head against Sam’s shoulder for one more moment, and then he went to pack.
#
It was three weeks this time, in Iowa of all places: a set of shadowy silos standing in the middle of vast corn fields full of rustling, whispering leaves. Each one was the top of an anthill going deep down below: half the floors deserted, a skeleton crew of operatives working amid the relics of grotesque experiments. They killed almost everyone, burned almost everything, sent the records back to Maria Hill. Steve slogged through the bases with his head down, watching Bucky’s back. He didn’t try to talk to Bucky in the windows of downtime. During the long stretches in the car, he stared out the window in silence, watching the endless fields and endless sky scroll by. The wide blue made him think of Sam, of wings against the sun; he held the feeling in his chest for a little bit and then let it go. He was glad that Sam hadn’t come; that Sam couldn’t have come. He didn’t want to bring Sam into this endless descent into hell, over and over.
End of the third week, driving away from another black burning plume against the sky behind them, Bucky glanced over at him in the car. Steve was aware of it, vaguely, as a movement in his peripheral vision. He didn’t look back. He felt drawn tight, as if letting himself realize how little he wanted to be here had made him unable to endure it anymore. It occurred to him a few moments later that it was the first time Bucky had looked at him, just to look at him. The first time, in three—four?—years of these missions. His throat closed up hard, and he put his arm up against the window, covered his mouth with his hand and kept his face turned away as far as he could without twisting in the seat.
Bucky said, “Are you injured?” He was frowning straight ahead, out the windshield.
Injured. Not are you hurt or are you okay; Bucky didn’t give a shit about those things for himself, why would he care about anyone else? He’d ignored Steve any time he’d tried to ask anything like that. “No,” Steve said.
Bucky drove on. Tears trickled over Steve’s fingers, dripped onto his pants. Bucky was still frowning. “Why are you crying?” he demanded finally, almost angrily.
Steve opened his mouth, and what came out was, “Because I can’t do this anymore,” and then he couldn’t stop; he put his hands over his face and wept. Bucky kept on driving. Steve couldn’t stop crying.
He woke up in a bed in a dark room, covered with a blanket. His head was pounding dully and his eyes were swollen and puffy when he touched them gingerly with his fingertips, like he’d cried himself all the way into unconsciousness. His throat was raw. He sat up, a cough rattling his chest, and then there was a cup thrust at him out of the dark, the pale white paper of it just barely visible. He took it and drank, and nearly cried again at the horrible and perfect sense memory of it: honey and black pepper and lemon, hot and strong.
“You were always sick,” Bucky said out of the dark. Flatly, but there was something about it that felt like a question.
“Yeah,” Steve said. “Before the serum.”
Bucky didn’t say anything else for a long time. Steve sipped the drink and tried not to start crying again. He was starting to feel better, serum already kicking in, but his eyes still hurt.
“Are you happy?” Bucky asked abruptly.
“What, right now?” Steve said, sarcastic, too tired to second-guess himself and rein it in.
“Not right now, dumbass,” Bucky said, and Steve jerked his head up like a scenting dog: Bucky. That had been him. There was nothing to see, though; Bucky was a shadow with tiny pinpricks of light caught in his eyes, and a few glints off the metal arm. “Not right now. Just, now.”
Steve got it: now. In this bizarre seventy-years-ahead world they’d both been shoved into. “Yes,” Steve said softly, thickly. It felt like an apology in his mouth. But it was true.
Bucky stared back at him. His face shifted slightly, frowning. “I’m not happy,” he said finally, like it was something he’d just decided.
“Maybe you should try doing something else,” Steve said.
“Maybe,” Bucky echoed. “Maybe.” He said it like a crazy new idea that had only just been introduced to him.
In the morning he was gone again, taking Steve’s money and credit cards like he always did. But he’d put the do-not-disturb sign on the front door, and he’d left another cup of honey pepper water by the bed. Steve didn’t need it anymore; his throat was fine, his eyes were fine. He drank it all anyway, cupping both hands around the paper cup, full of fragile, half-scared gratitude.
#
It had been impossible to make calls the last couple weeks; if Bucky had caught him talking on a phone he would’ve vanished. Steve had texted Sam only in moments stolen when Bucky was taking a leak or getting some supplies; he’d had to keep his phone turned off almost the entire time. Steve didn’t text or call now, just headed straight back to the Tower in blind homing instinct. He made it back to the city in nine hours, into the elevator with barely a wave to Gina on the reception desk; then he came into the apartment and stopped, hearing high kids’ voices somewhere in the back bedrooms and Sam talking to a woman in the living room. The sound of his voice stopped at the sound of the door closing, and he appeared in the entry a moment later and did a double-take at him. “Steve!”
“I didn’t call,” Steve said, starting to apologize, but Sam was there, pulling him into a hug, and Steve shut his eyes and buried his face against Sam’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry, man, I wasn’t expecting you,” Sam said quietly, by his ear. “It's okay. We can get out of the way in a minute.”
“You don't need to,” Steve said, a little desperately. He didn’t want the apartment to himself, he wanted—this, he wanted Sam, and human voices, and life. He swallowed and tried to pull himself together. “Just give me a second, I’ll be right out.”
“You sure?” Sam said. “All right. Take your time, man, we’re not in a rush.”
Steve raced through a shower and a shave that left him looking less like a hobo, and came back out to find Sam waiting in his room, sitting on the bed. “Me and Sarah were going to take the kids to the natural history museum in a little while,” he said. “You want me to go, you want me to stay, you tell me.”
“I haven’t been since 1940,” Steve said. “I can stand to go again. If—if that’s okay,” he added belatedly, seeing Sam’s eyebrow going up.
“Oh, you’re welcome to come if you can stand it,” Sam said. “But they’re five and seven, man, it's going to be a day. You really up for it?”
“Yeah, I’m in,” Steve said. It sounded fantastic, actually; the kind of thing that ordinary human beings did. You took kids to the museum, you looked at a dinosaur, you bought them an ice cream. There were people around you and you didn’t kill any of them. He wanted in almost desperately.
Sam nodded. “All right, man, but if you’re really coming, there’s something I’ve got to prepare you for.”
“Yeah?”
“I hate to tell you this,” Sam said seriously, “but they think Iron Man’s cooler than you.”
“They just haven’t met me yet,” Steve said firmly.
“You think that’s going to do it, huh?” Sam said.
“Oh, are you saying it’s not?” Steve retorted. He put out a hand and pulled Sam to his feet.
Sam came up smiling, put his hand on Steve’s other arm. “Seriously, you okay?” he asked. His hand was warm; he was standing in close. Steve smiled back at him. “I am now,” he said, and meant it more with every minute. His whole body felt lighter.
#
Sam took him to the living room and introduced him to his sister. Steve shook hands and made himself say, “It’s good to meet you, Sarah,” instead of calling her ma’am. He knew she was a minister, and somehow she felt like one; she was wearing ordinary clothes, pants and a blouse and a jacket, but there was something—unyielding in her, like in Sam, that same strength. She had Sam’s warm eyes, too, but they were looking him over with a searching expression. Steve’s shoulders involuntarily straightened up an extra centimeter or two. Then the kids came barrelling into the room, and gave him an excuse to look down: the little girl was tugging on his pants. She and the boy stared up at him with deep suspicion. “Are you really Captain America?”
He knelt down and smiled at her. “Yeah. Don’t tell anyone, okay? I’m off the clock.”
The boy folded his arms and looked even more skeptical. “You don’t look like Captain America.”
“Jason!” Sarah said, groaning faintly.
Steve scored some points with Jason and Jody at the museum by hoisting them onto his shoulders and running them up the four flights of stairs when the elevator was full. The rest of the day turned into the two of them demanding to be carted around and then, after inspiration struck Jody, tossed into the air every ten steps. “Hey, man, you show off, you reap what you sow,” Sam said, grinning at him, but Steve didn’t mind. He did get a break in the ocean life room, while the two kids went tearing around wildly under the whale—which was a life-size blue whale, hanging from the ceiling.
“That’s new,” Steve said, staring up at it, uncomfortably reminded of the space dragon things the Chitauri had brought through. The room was dark, dim, an faint ocean roaring coming out of hidden speakers; in the corner the giant squid and the sperm whale dragged each other down into the dark, tentacles lighting up every time someone took a flashbulb photo of the diorama. His back tightened up.
“A few things’ve changed, huh?” Sam said, bumping shoulders with him. Steve leaned back into his warmth, and the feeling ebbed.
By the time they loaded the kids back into the car for the drive home to Jersey, Steve had managed to win a hug from Jody and a whispered, “I do like you better than Iron Man.” Jason glared at her: a sibling pact had apparently been betrayed. Then he ducked his head in front of Steve and muttered, “Iron Man has lasers.”
Steve nodded regretfully. “I understand. Tell you what, next time I’ll bring the shield, how’s that?”
Jason’s eyes got a little wide. “That would be okay,” he allowed.
He condescended to accept a high-five before he scrambled into the car. Steve stood up and shrugged to Sam and Sarah. “Us ordinary supersoldiers just can’t compete with lasers.”
“I guess you did okay,” Sarah said, something noncommittal in her tone; she looked at Sam with an eyebrow raised. “I’ll call you later.”
“Yeah, I know you will,” Sam said, dry, as she climbed into the car.
“Did I—” Steve said as they walked to collect the motorcycle, belatedly worried he’d done something wrong; the last thing he’d wanted to do was make a bad impression on Sam’s sister. But Sam was already waving it off.
“Nah, nothing I can’t handle,” he said, climbing on. “Don’t worry about it.” He patted the seat in front of him. “Now come on. I don’t know what kind of masochism routine you’re working here, capping off a three-week tour of Hydra bases with a day with kindergartners, but it’s over. I swear, Rogers, you look like you lost twenty pounds. We’re going home, we’re ordering all the good Chinese, and you’re going to bed early.”
“Yes, sir,” Steve said, saluting with crisp perfection, and Sam smacked him on the ass as he climbed onto the bike. Steve smiled the whole way home, and that night he slept for twenty-three hours straight.
#
A couple of weeks later they were barely in the door, home from a children’s hospital visit, when Sam’s cellphone rang. “Yeah?” He stopped short, his hand just reaching to put his keys in the basket, and after a moment said, “How’re you doing?” quiet and more constrained than Steve had ever heard him. The conversation went on in monosyllables, one-sided: “Yeah. Good. Good. Yeah, all right. Sure. I’ll see you there.” After Sam hung up, he was quiet for a solid minute just standing there, hand wrapped around the cellphone, before he said with oddly forced lightness, “Leila’s in town.”
Steve knew about Leila, a little. He knew she and Sam had been together for almost a year, back in DC while Sam had been working on his peer counseling certification; he knew it had gone south. He’d never pushed Sam for details and he wasn’t going to start now, but there was a weird tightness in his gut even as he said, “Sure, have a good time,” when Sam said he was going to go meet her for a drink, catch up.
The apartment felt strange and empty all night. Steve tried to settle down with a book, tried to watch some TV. He kept getting up to wander around, restless. He cooked some dinner, made too much food. Sam didn’t come home. Steve scraped the leftovers into a tupperware and put them away. He went and sat in the living room with the lights off, looking out at the city. He wondered if Sam was okay.
He knew Sam regretted the breakup; even the little he’d ever said, Steve had the feeling it weighed on him like not much else did. His dad, Riley, Leila: those were the things Sam carried, and none of them were small or petty. Steve was pretty sure Sam hadn’t talked to Leila in a long while. He wondered if they’d make it up. Something was strange and tight in his throat, and he abruptly, stomach knotting, recognized it as jealousy. He didn’t want Sam to get back together with Leila. He wanted Sam to come home to him.
He stood up and went to the window, staring out blindly at the lights. It was oddly, horribly familiar: watching Bucky walk away onto a dance floor with his arm around a girl, laughing; lying in his bunk at night helplessly thinking about Peggy in an airplane with Howard flying to Paris. He’d felt stupid then, he felt stupid now; knowing he was a jerk even feeling that way, and sorry for himself at the same time.
Sam got home around eleven. Steve looked up from the couch with the book he was pretending to read. He’d mentally rehearsed his lines: hope you had a good time, how is she doing; he was determined not to act like the idiot he apparently couldn’t help being. But Sam’s face was tight and sad, and abruptly Steve couldn’t sit there and pretend anything; he got up and pulled Sam into a hug.
He could feel Sam being surprised for a moment, and then his arms came tight around him. They held on a long moment, Sam’s body warm against him, here and his—for as long as the hug lasted, and Steve just didn’t want to let go at all. He wanted—he wanted—he swallowed hard and shifted in, and Sam got it immediately. Sam went still in his arms for two, three breaths, and then abruptly Sam’s hand was around the back of his head, and they were kissing.
Sam’s mouth tasted of the red wine he loved; had that come from Leila? But Sam was kissing him back, sweet hard urgent kisses, and it didn’t matter. Steve’s stomach settled with a comfortable finality; this was what mattered. Leila might be a regret, but Sam was in his arms, taking comfort from him, wanting him. “Sam,” Steve murmured against his mouth, his skin, hungry and glad and triumphant.
“So when you said you’d have sex with me again anytime—” Sam said, panting.
“How about now,” Steve said, leaning back to yank his shirt off over his head. “Now works for me.”
“Yeah, okay,” Sam said, and he was startled but grinning, his whole face alight, not sad anymore at all; he got three buttons undone on his own shirt and hauled it off over his head too.
They could both strip barracks-speed when they needed to, so it didn’t take more than one minute forty-five seconds by Steve’s internal clock before they were naked, in bed, and he was discovering he’d been too high last time to really appreciate the full glory of a blowjob, or maybe Sam had been too high to really give it right, or something, because oh Christ, he could get maybe three of these a day for the rest of his life, that would do him just fine.
Sam was laughing after, sprawling out next to him and wiping his mouth. “You like that, huh?”
“Oh my God,” Steve said drunkenly. “Can we do that again?”
“I can’t see any reason why not,” Sam said. “Except all the things we haven’t done yet.”
“Show me,” Steve said. “Show me all of them.” He curled into Sam and nuzzled at him, kissing his mouth, his throat, asking.
“I thought you weren’t a virgin?” Sam said, but his hand was sliding up Steve’s thigh while he was saying it.
“I’ll have you know I made it with six girls on the USO tour,” Steve said, spreading his legs encouragingly, hoping maybe Sam was going to reach some key places any minute now.
“Oh, yeah?” Sam said, propping himself up and grinning down at him. “Come on, Rogers, kiss and tell,” and Steve found himself turning red.
“Well, uh,” he said, hot-faced, “they, uh.” Sam’s hand was almost—“They took turns? In the back of the bus?”
“In the—are you kidding me?” Sam yelled. “Rogers, did they just hop on for a ride or what?”
“Well,” Steve said, with a faint complaining whine to his voice, because Sam still wasn’t touching—and then oh, he was, and shaking his head too, indignantly, saying, “You haven’t even had it yet, have you.”
“No,” Steve said, hips pushing urgently into Sam’s grip. “No, please,” because whatever it was, Steve desperately wanted Sam to give it to him.
#
Steve floated through the next few days in a fugue state of lust and happiness, having sex with Sam or thinking about having sex with Sam, everything uncomplicated and perfect. Sam had lunch with Leila once more before she left the city, but Steve didn’t mind at all. He stretched himself out on the bed that was already theirs instead of his, put an arm behind his head and said, “I’ll be here when you get back,” feeling smug.
“No reason to hurry or anything, though, right?” Sam said, and bent down to kiss him. “Who even knew you were the jealous type, Rogers.”
Steve did sigh after Sam had gone, but that was only because he could’ve gone right then. He took a shower instead, did some work reviewing intelligence reports Barton had sent in from Europe; the intercom buzzed and Gina said, “Hi, Captain Rogers, there’s a Sarah Wilson here,” and Steve said, “Send her up,” and hurriedly got on some pants.
“Sam’s out, he’ll be back soon,” Steve said, letting her in, feeling weirdly nervous. He still wasn’t sure Sarah liked him at all, and now it mattered a hell of a lot more if she did. Sam loved his big sister, looked up to her; Steve had heard him talk about her with quiet pride so often.
“Mm-hm,” she said, walking into the living room. Steve followed her uncertainly.
“Can I get you—something to drink?” he asked. “I could make coffee.”
“Coffee’s good,” she said, so he gratefully escaped to the kitchen and puttered around there while she sat in the living room looking at the books they’d left scattered around. She was looking at the Tyson book when Steve came out with the coffee. “Is this you or Sam?” she asked.
“Both of us,” Steve said. “After the third alien invasion, we all figured we needed to know a little more about what’s out there. Dr. Foster is running a book club for us.”
Sarah huffed a laugh and took the mug of coffee. She held on to it and looked at him, searchingly. Steve found himself perched on the edge of the other couch. “How are the kids?” he asked.
“Good,” she said. “They haven’t quit bragging to all their friends yet, and the Iron Man toys have mysteriously fallen out of favor. They keep asking me when we’re going to come into the city again.”
“We could take them to Coney sometime?” Steve offered. “I loved that place like crazy when I was their age.”
“Yeah? You and Sam?” she said, raising an eyebrow. “That’s something you’d like to do?”
“I—yes?” Steve said, hoping he wasn’t saying something wrong.
She pressed her lips together a moment, and then she set down her cup and looked at him straight on. “Steve, you tell me if I’m wrong, but I get the feeling I’m not supposed to know you two are together.”
“What—oh—I, no, that’s not,” Steve stammered. “It’s not a secret,” and then he wondered in sudden alarm if it was. She seemed to think she should’ve known—did she talk to Sam talk every day? Was there a reason Sam hadn’t told her yet?
“Mm,” she said. “Am I supposed to be happy?”
She didn’t look happy. “Sam’s happy,” Steve said defiantly, feeling cold. “I’m making him happy. He’s making me happy. Is that good enough?”
“I don’t know, you tell me,” she said. “Is that all that counts?”
Steve felt a little sick. If anyone could persuade Sam to—he stood up, almost shaking. “All that counts? I love him. He loves me. He makes me—he makes everything better. He makes the whole damn world better. What else is there that counts? You think God gives a damn that we’re both men?”
Steve stopped, panting, glaring down at her, and then Sam said from behind him, strangled, “Dude.”
Steve turned, caught Sam by the shoulders. “Sam. Don’t—” don’t leave me, don’t stop, don’t—
“Steve, man,” Sam said, “I just walked into this conversation, so I have no idea how you got started barking up this tree, but I can tell you, it’s the wrong tree. In fact, it’s more like a streetlamp in another country.”
“What?” Steve looked at Sarah, who’d sat herself back comfortably in the armchair with her legs crossed, looking up at him with a raised and unimpressed eyebrow.
“I’m a minister in a reconciliation church, honey,” she said. “A quarter of my congregation’s queer. This is not the stop being gay talk.”
“Oh,” Steve said.
“What I want to know is why there’s a talk happening at all?” Sam demanded.
“Well, I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe because Steve here tells me it’s not a secret you’re together, but I hear about it from him instead of from you.”
“We’ve been together three days!” Sam said.
“‘Together,’ huh?” she said. “What were you calling it two months ago when you brought him out to impress the kids?”
Sam took a deep indignant breath, but Steve broke in, “Wait—if it’s not the stop being gay talk, then what—”
“This is the stop fornicating talk,” Sarah said.
“Oh,” Steve said blankly.
She stood up to face Sam. “Sam, honey, I know Leila did a number on you, okay?”
Sam put a hand his face and groaned. “I’m going to disown you.”
“You’ve been living together three years now!” she said. “But I don’t get to meet him except by accident, then you’re telling me not to imagine things, but it’s not a secret—”
“We were roommates!” Sam yelled. “Three days, Sarah! Damn!”
She folded her arms. “Three days ago, that’s the first time you ever hooked up?”
“Well,” Steve said, because there had been that time with the alien technology—and then he shut his mouth again as Sam threw him an urgent you are not helping abort now! look.
“Yeah, uh huh.” She turned towards Steve, a challenging light in her eyes. “You know, that was quite the speech you made me just now. Sounded real nice. You think maybe you might want to stand up and say something like that in front of some more witnesses, maybe thank the Lord for sending you that kind of love?”
Steve stared down at her. “Yes?”
Sarah blinked back at him, her turn to look confused, and then Sam said, in controlled tones, “Did you just propose for me?” Then he transferred the glare to Steve. “And did you seriously just say yes? To her?”
Steve stared at Sam, then looked back to Sarah. “Would you please excuse us a moment?”
“I don’t know, maybe I should go, I don’t seem to be needed for this conversation!” Sam said.
“Sounds like you should’ve been having this conversation before now!” Sarah said, poking him in the chest on her way out of the room.
“Three days, I’m not even joking!” Sam yelled after her, and wheeled around when Steve caught his arm, but when Steve said, choked a little, “Sam—do you—need more time?” all the indignation ran right out of his face.
“Rogers, what am I even going to do with you?” Sam said, half laughing, taking Steve’s face in his hands and kissing him.
“Marry me,” Steve said, with a gasp, between kisses. “You’re going to—”
“Just like that, huh?” Sam said. But he was still smiling.
“Well,” Steve said. “I don’t see any reason to make it more complicated, do you?”
# End