fic: the anatomy of a night
I don't even know where this came from, but here it is. Because monstrousreg. Yep.
Title: The Anatomy of a Night
Relationship: Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes/Sam Wilson.
Rating: R for heavily implied sex
Word Count: 3,034
Disclaimers: characters belong to Marvel, not me! only doing this out of affection.
Summary: Steve, Bucky, Sam, and a quiet night at home.
Notes: because monstrousreg made me do it. With love.
In the morning, a mission might come. Might demand they follow it, separately or together. All three of them know that’s so.
For now, though: the night’s cool and green-scented, hints of chilly spring and pale blossoms, and the apartment they share is warm and snug. It’s not a large place. They could afford bigger. They like to stay close; they each have different reasons, but come to the same conclusion, unerringly, in the end.
Steve makes popcorn-endlessly fascinated by the magic of the microwave-and Bucky leans against the wall and watches, not quite smiling. He doesn’t reach out for Steve, though he could; the gaze does it for him, an implicit hand on an arm, an anchor to reality.
Sam smiles just a little, and ducks into the fridge, and comes back out with three beers. The alcohol content won’t do anything for Steve and only a little for Bucky, but it’s the principle of the thing. A man deserves his own beer.
When he turns, balancing all three bottles, Bucky’s behind him, soundless as ever; Sam sighs, “Man, how many times do I have to tell you that’s spooky?” and gets the fleeting slanted grin, the one that appears and disappears like smoke, startled out of existence the second it becomes self-aware.
Bucky pokes the cap of the closest beer with an inquisitive metal finger. The cap flips off. Sam says, “Well, fine, then,” and hands the other two over. Earns one more grin.
The microwave beeps. Steve turns around with popcorn and a proudly heroic smile. “This thing is incredible, you guys, seriously, did you know it’s got a hot-dog setting and-”
“Do not tell me you nuked the popcorn on the hot-dog setting,” Sam grumbles, and Steve says, “Nuked?” and Bucky says, “You’re just saying that to be adorable so we’ll kiss you,” in a tone that announces, I know all your tactics before you’ve even thought of them.
Steve looks only briefly crestfallen. “Did it work?”
“Always does,” Sam says, and proves it. Bucky waits-Sam’s never quite figured out whether that’s the product of brutal conditioning, an unconscious deference to any air of previously-established authority, or whether it’s a lingering sense of guilt and amazement and incredulity at being here at all, or if that’s a last lingering glimpse of the original James Barnes, the one who’d been silently in love with Steve Rogers’ courageous heart long before the rest of the world ever knew the name. But it doesn’t matter; Steve cocks his head in invitation, and Bucky steps forward and leans in and up and breathes a kiss against the corner of his mouth, soft and shy. It works. They work, together.
They put on Star Trek, working their way through The Next Generation. Steve’s enthralled by Gene Roddenberry’s vision of the multicultural exploratory future. Sam opens another beer-he’s waiting for them to hit Deep Space Nine and Captain Sisko-and puts up with Captain Picard’s terrible flute music. Bucky perches like a feral kitten on the sofa arm at first, and then gradually inches over, as the dialogue continues, until he’s curled up into Steve’s side. Sam leans sideways into Steve’s other side, on the left, lazily-Captain America runs warm and makes a marvelous backrest-and Steve wraps arms around both of them.
After a while Sam feels lips brush the top of his head. He tips his head back, startled; Bucky’s already moved, reflexes like lightning, but ventures, “I kissed him and not you, in the kitchen,” and Sam grins because the world is excellent and the Winter Soldier is more adorable than anyone would ever in a million years believe.
He’s damn glad he followed Steve Rogers on that particular crusade. James Buchanan Barnes is worth fighting for.
Steve is too, of course. Obviously. No question there.
Around eight he disentangles himself, with reluctance, and pads to the kitchen for real actual food. His mama raised him to take care of himself, and that meant learning all her recipes backwards and forwards; good thing, too, ’cause neither of his partners can cook worth a damn. Steve’s all puppy-eager and helpless, and Bucky…that one’s complicated on account of one of the Winter Soldier’s first missions involving a shoot-out in a hotel kitchen. Bucky would willingly try if asked, but despite the Avengers’ and SHIELD’s and the X-Men’s best efforts at deconstructing the tangled glass spikes of his brain, the flashbacks are unpredictable, and worse involving the early years, before the process got refined.
Refined. Hell of a euphemism. Sam has to stop and stare at the stovetop for a while. It stares back, compassion in every flicker of flame under the burner.
Right. Food. He can do that much; so he will.
Just mac and cheese, easy and homey and unfussy; he makes it the way he learned, though, bacon bits and extra cheddar and bread-crumb topping and a final oven-bake to finish off, and when he turns around Bucky’s leaning against the wall again, poised in the doorway where he can keep an eye on both his partners. Right. Sam’s been out of view for more than twenty minutes. Bucky’s fingers are playing with his favorite sleek-edged knife.
“Still here,” Sam says, “not kidnapped or anything, I’d be yelling for you to get me my damn wings if anyone tried, want to taste-test this for me?”
“No one’s ever going to kidnap you.” That too young, too old voice sounds very nearly amused, and utterly matter-of-fact. “I’d kill anyone who even made an attempt.”
“You can’t kill all your problems, babe.” At this, those pale eyes get absolutely huge. Sam grins. “No? Sweetheart? Cuddle muffin? Love machine? Still no?”
“Stop.” Bucky’s lips are actually twitching. “Please.”
“You’re almost in a kitchen,” Sam says, and he’s saying I love you, and Bucky takes a deep breath and shifts weight his direction. “I’ve seen that episode. And you’re here.”
“What, you didn’t want to see it again? If you stay there I’ll come feed you.”
“I don’t understand how people watch stories more than once…the outcome’s predetermined…no, stay where you are.” A step, and another one, and some hovering around the edge of a bar-stool that turns into the widest possible definition of the word sitting. “Steve forgets that I’ve been in and out more than he has. Over the years. He’s being very loudly excited about Captain Picard.”
“Yeah, he and Gene would’ve been fast friends.” Sam plops pasta onto plates, dusts them with parmesan just because-final flourish-and shoves one that direction. “Here. Tell me if you think it needs anything else.”
“It won’t.”
“Thanks for having faith in me.”
Startled-ice eyes regard the offered cheese, pasta, slow coils of hearty steam. “You saved me. You and him.”
Incontrovertible, that tone. Unshakable, amid a fractured world: this is one thing, says that voice, that I do know.
It’s not just about the day they’d brought him home. It’s about the beer, and Star Trek, and macaroni. It’s the answering I love you.
“Right,” Sam agrees, “so you can help me with this, bring more beer, and sometimes it’s not a bad thing to love a story so much you want to hear it again, never get sick of it, know it’ll always be there for you, know what I mean?”
“You’re saying your cooking,” Bucky murmurs, “can be Star Trek,” and Sam blinks, and has to laugh. The oven and the plates and the cozy scent of melted cheese brighten up conspiratorially too.
And then Bucky adds, meditatively, “…babe,” and Sam nearly drops all three plates on his foot, he’s laughing so hard.
Bucky grins. Not quite a laugh, but the emotion’s there, glinting through all the ghostly labyrinths. “Revenge.”
“I’m gonna make you watch reality tv,” Sam threatens, “you’re gonna meet the Kardashians,” and Steve yells plaintively from the other room, “You’re missing the best part!” and they exchange the exact same glance and head out to feed Captain America macaroni and cheese so he’ll stop saying things like “Gosh!” every time a new alien race appears on screen.
Around eleven, Steve’s hand tangles into Bucky’s hair; Sam looks up and gets the other hand rubbing his shoulder in a way that’s got a certain meaning. Steve might still blush talking about sex, but he definitely likes having it, and tonight’s a good night, a dreamy kind of night, ordinary and hence extraordinary; they fumble their way down the hall in a tangle of limbs and hands and quick breaths and shared kisses, and fall into bed.
That’s extraordinary too. Always is.
Steve’s exactly the kind of lover everyone’d expect Captain America to be: attentive, devoted, respectful, and well-endowed all over, and all of those’re damn good things. Bucky’s even quieter in bed than he is out of it, which is saying something, but it’s not a bad kind of quiet; it’s tinged with a kind of eager reverence, like he’s determined to make every time the best of their lives, each time he’s given the chance. Somewhat surprisingly, or maybe not surprisingly at all, he’s more adventurous than Steve when it comes to slightly kinky activities, like the time Sam playfully smacked him on the ass and then discovered that the resultant gasp had been one of desire. They’ve all realized that some nights he needs the pain. Counterbalancing the memories. Annealing. Cleansing through fire.
Tonight’s not one of those nights, though. Tonight’s made for long drawn-out kisses and hushed little moans and bodies moving against each other. Piercing sweetness, like shattering crystal in the dark.
Sam, as usual, ends up rather proud of the fact that, despite sharing a bed with two super-soldiers and their respective strength and stamina and non-existent recovery periods, he’s not in fact the one worn out first. He’s got skills. The two well-muscled centenarians in his bed’re still learning. Lots of exploration. Which is just fine by him.
None of them sleeps much-different but understood old scars-but Sam generally manages to sleep the most, being non-super-human and all. Bucky sleeps the least, though that’s at least in part because the Winter Soldier gets a little uncomfortable if no one’s on guard. In part it has to do with the nightmares, of course, but the rest is just Bucky trying, in one of the only ways he knows, to protect the two people he loves.
Steve’s somewhere in the middle, because super-soldiers can live on fewer hours of rest but also crash hard when they come down, and Steve pushes himself more than anyone Sam’s ever known. Captain America needs to be the best. To be the hero. Because the world will always need saving.
At present the world seems pretty sated, though, all drowsy afterglow, stickiness, messy sheets and hushed purely happy random touches. Contentment in Steve’s sweat-damp hair. In the glint of winter-sky eyes through familiar bedroom shadows. In the satisfied thrumming of Sam’s body. Damn good.
When they do sleep, Steve sprawls out on his stomach in the center of the bed, relaxed in a way he’s only been since they’ve been living here, together, all of them come home. He ends up face-down in the pillows, arms and legs everywhere; Sam looks at him, catches Bucky looking at him too, and knows they’re thinking it in unison: God, we love this man.
Bucky balances on Steve’s right, on the edge of the giant plush mattress, probably in case he needs to throw a knife or kick an intruder in the head or something, although he’s getting better about the whole trying to take up as little space as possible so as not to impose issue. Sam’d asked once, “Aren’t you afraid you’re gonna, y’know, fall off the bed?” and had gotten a blank look and a flat, “No.” A week or so and multiple Hydra-related bruises and extremely enthusiastic thank-god-we’re-alive sex later, Steve and Sam had been awakened by an abrupt movement from that side, bed shaking around them.
Bucky has excellent reflexes even when exhausted down to the bone. Would point out, if asked, that he’d not technically fallen off the bed, courtesy of a metal arm and hair-trigger instincts. Steve and Sam have tactfully not asked. Sam’s noticed that a few more inches of bed keep appearing over there, though, and it’s way easier to reach Bucky for sleepy kisses when he’s closer to the middle.
Sam himself can and does sleep pretty much anywhere, a military service record’ll do that, but they’ve worked out that it’s probably best he sleeps on Steve’s other side. If Bucky has one of those nightmares, it’s better for everyone if Steve’s the one who gets hit with a flailing metal arm.
If Steve has a nightmare-rare, but it happens; Captain America’s lost a lot of friends, a lot of family, a lot of time-Bucky’s instantly awake to hold him, and Sam’s there to talk. That works, too.
If Sam has a nightmare-well, he went through a phase of not telling them about it, they’ve both been through hells worse than his own, secret experimentation and cryo-freeze time-travel mind-fucks and brainwashing torture. But it’s kind of useless trying to hide an elevated heart rate and gasping breaths and frantic memories of watching his old partner fall out of the sky, or at least it’s useless when both his current partners have heightened senses and a lot of concern. Steve had put an arm around his shoulders and said, sincerity ringing through every word, “you know our stories don’t make yours any less real.” Bucky’d leaned against him on the other side, the tentative weight speaking whole encyclopedias, and offered, “I’m sorry I used your pizza dough for experimental rifle practice last week, I can try to help you make more.”
Sam had started laughing through the shakiness, and got out, “No, it’s cool, I made extra, it’s in the freezer, I love you, both of you, come here-” and they’d held each other for a while, just being tangibly present and in love and alive.
Tonight, he sticks a leg between both of Steve’s-hears the sleepy rumble-and taps toes over Bucky’s ankle, making sure to telegraph the motion first. After a second, Bucky moves the leg to rest atop Sam’s foot, an assertion, a yes.
Around three in the morning Bucky wakes up screaming. Only one scream, really; he’s fighting to hold it back even as the sound splinters the night. Steve and Sam sit up in unison-that’s choreographed by habit, by now-and Steve gets both hands on his shoulders and holds him until those eyes stop seeing cold metal implements and sadistic faces and start seeing the present instead. The shaking starts after that; Steve promptly moves over and Sam scoots in and they get Bucky settled between them, safely wrapped up in body heat and murmured grounding words and hands rubbing warmth back into icy skin.
Eventually, both hands-one metal and one flesh, but equally cold-reach out for them in turn. The shivering eases. Another night, a few more careful kisses, and they’re all still here. Yes.
No apocalyptic crisis arises in the dwindling last hours before dawn, and they sleep until almost eight for once, awakening in the same pile of affectionate arms and legs and blankets. Bucky, both eyes open, lies between them a bit uncertainly; the how’d I get here, shouldn’t I not enjoy being trapped between bodies, is it all right to want to stay for a second more? is written all over his face, because the Winter Soldier is the complete opposite of an emotionless implacable assassin, especially on golden-hued soft-pillowed mornings.
Steve yawns and inquires, “More Star Trek and pancakes in bed?” Sam yawns because it’s contagious-Bucky doesn’t, which, what the hell, how’s that level of resistance even possible-and mumbles, “Your plan has one major flaw, and it’s called a lack of maple syrup.”
Steve looks sleepily attractively disappointed, but only for a moment, because Captain America can rise to any occasion. “Cereal?”
Bucky, remaining very still between them, offers, “I can go find us maple syrup.”
They both look at him. The words float out and settle into the morning, bumping gently against dresser drawers, sunbeams, rumpled sheets, bare skin. The idea should sound absurd-the Winter Soldier in a supermarket, standing in line, paying for breakfast items-and maybe it does, a little. But it’s a good kind of absurdity. The kind that feels like home.
“I promise not to kill anyone,” Bucky says. “Really. Not even if they’ve got twelve items when the sign says ten or fewer.”
Steve opens his mouth. Sam, about ninety percent sure that’s a joke, jumps in before Steve can go all concerned-protective-fortress about this brand-new suggestion. “Pretty sure it’s legal for you to threaten them after fifteen. If you can handle bananas too, I’ll throw banana-bread coffee-cake together.”
“Threatening…no guns, only knives.” Definitely teasing, now. With appreciation lurking in the crooked pale mazes behind those eyes. “And I can…handle…bananas. I thought you noticed. Last night. Should I demonstrate again?”
“Oh my God,” Sam says, “did you just make a sex joke about fruit, seriously, that was terrible, we’re gonna have to work on your pick-up lines, you’re lucky we’re already in bed with you.” Steve looks at both of them with utter delight and says, “Fruit is part of a healthy breakfast. I think we should be healthy this morning. With bananas.”
“Not you too,” Sam mourns, “surrounded by awful puns, what did I ever do to deserve this,” and tries to put his head under the closest pillow. Steve takes it away. “You love us.”
“Yeah, I do, but you’re lucky you’re not trying to pick me up in a bar or something with those lines, is all I’m sayin’-”
Bucky says, “We love you,” quiet and fervent, whole broken and beautiful heart right there in those eyes, those words.
Sam sits up and pulls them both into a shared kiss under the tumbling morning sunlight and says, “I know.”
Title: The Anatomy of a Night
Relationship: Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes/Sam Wilson.
Rating: R for heavily implied sex
Word Count: 3,034
Disclaimers: characters belong to Marvel, not me! only doing this out of affection.
Summary: Steve, Bucky, Sam, and a quiet night at home.
Notes: because monstrousreg made me do it. With love.
In the morning, a mission might come. Might demand they follow it, separately or together. All three of them know that’s so.
For now, though: the night’s cool and green-scented, hints of chilly spring and pale blossoms, and the apartment they share is warm and snug. It’s not a large place. They could afford bigger. They like to stay close; they each have different reasons, but come to the same conclusion, unerringly, in the end.
Steve makes popcorn-endlessly fascinated by the magic of the microwave-and Bucky leans against the wall and watches, not quite smiling. He doesn’t reach out for Steve, though he could; the gaze does it for him, an implicit hand on an arm, an anchor to reality.
Sam smiles just a little, and ducks into the fridge, and comes back out with three beers. The alcohol content won’t do anything for Steve and only a little for Bucky, but it’s the principle of the thing. A man deserves his own beer.
When he turns, balancing all three bottles, Bucky’s behind him, soundless as ever; Sam sighs, “Man, how many times do I have to tell you that’s spooky?” and gets the fleeting slanted grin, the one that appears and disappears like smoke, startled out of existence the second it becomes self-aware.
Bucky pokes the cap of the closest beer with an inquisitive metal finger. The cap flips off. Sam says, “Well, fine, then,” and hands the other two over. Earns one more grin.
The microwave beeps. Steve turns around with popcorn and a proudly heroic smile. “This thing is incredible, you guys, seriously, did you know it’s got a hot-dog setting and-”
“Do not tell me you nuked the popcorn on the hot-dog setting,” Sam grumbles, and Steve says, “Nuked?” and Bucky says, “You’re just saying that to be adorable so we’ll kiss you,” in a tone that announces, I know all your tactics before you’ve even thought of them.
Steve looks only briefly crestfallen. “Did it work?”
“Always does,” Sam says, and proves it. Bucky waits-Sam’s never quite figured out whether that’s the product of brutal conditioning, an unconscious deference to any air of previously-established authority, or whether it’s a lingering sense of guilt and amazement and incredulity at being here at all, or if that’s a last lingering glimpse of the original James Barnes, the one who’d been silently in love with Steve Rogers’ courageous heart long before the rest of the world ever knew the name. But it doesn’t matter; Steve cocks his head in invitation, and Bucky steps forward and leans in and up and breathes a kiss against the corner of his mouth, soft and shy. It works. They work, together.
They put on Star Trek, working their way through The Next Generation. Steve’s enthralled by Gene Roddenberry’s vision of the multicultural exploratory future. Sam opens another beer-he’s waiting for them to hit Deep Space Nine and Captain Sisko-and puts up with Captain Picard’s terrible flute music. Bucky perches like a feral kitten on the sofa arm at first, and then gradually inches over, as the dialogue continues, until he’s curled up into Steve’s side. Sam leans sideways into Steve’s other side, on the left, lazily-Captain America runs warm and makes a marvelous backrest-and Steve wraps arms around both of them.
After a while Sam feels lips brush the top of his head. He tips his head back, startled; Bucky’s already moved, reflexes like lightning, but ventures, “I kissed him and not you, in the kitchen,” and Sam grins because the world is excellent and the Winter Soldier is more adorable than anyone would ever in a million years believe.
He’s damn glad he followed Steve Rogers on that particular crusade. James Buchanan Barnes is worth fighting for.
Steve is too, of course. Obviously. No question there.
Around eight he disentangles himself, with reluctance, and pads to the kitchen for real actual food. His mama raised him to take care of himself, and that meant learning all her recipes backwards and forwards; good thing, too, ’cause neither of his partners can cook worth a damn. Steve’s all puppy-eager and helpless, and Bucky…that one’s complicated on account of one of the Winter Soldier’s first missions involving a shoot-out in a hotel kitchen. Bucky would willingly try if asked, but despite the Avengers’ and SHIELD’s and the X-Men’s best efforts at deconstructing the tangled glass spikes of his brain, the flashbacks are unpredictable, and worse involving the early years, before the process got refined.
Refined. Hell of a euphemism. Sam has to stop and stare at the stovetop for a while. It stares back, compassion in every flicker of flame under the burner.
Right. Food. He can do that much; so he will.
Just mac and cheese, easy and homey and unfussy; he makes it the way he learned, though, bacon bits and extra cheddar and bread-crumb topping and a final oven-bake to finish off, and when he turns around Bucky’s leaning against the wall again, poised in the doorway where he can keep an eye on both his partners. Right. Sam’s been out of view for more than twenty minutes. Bucky’s fingers are playing with his favorite sleek-edged knife.
“Still here,” Sam says, “not kidnapped or anything, I’d be yelling for you to get me my damn wings if anyone tried, want to taste-test this for me?”
“No one’s ever going to kidnap you.” That too young, too old voice sounds very nearly amused, and utterly matter-of-fact. “I’d kill anyone who even made an attempt.”
“You can’t kill all your problems, babe.” At this, those pale eyes get absolutely huge. Sam grins. “No? Sweetheart? Cuddle muffin? Love machine? Still no?”
“Stop.” Bucky’s lips are actually twitching. “Please.”
“You’re almost in a kitchen,” Sam says, and he’s saying I love you, and Bucky takes a deep breath and shifts weight his direction. “I’ve seen that episode. And you’re here.”
“What, you didn’t want to see it again? If you stay there I’ll come feed you.”
“I don’t understand how people watch stories more than once…the outcome’s predetermined…no, stay where you are.” A step, and another one, and some hovering around the edge of a bar-stool that turns into the widest possible definition of the word sitting. “Steve forgets that I’ve been in and out more than he has. Over the years. He’s being very loudly excited about Captain Picard.”
“Yeah, he and Gene would’ve been fast friends.” Sam plops pasta onto plates, dusts them with parmesan just because-final flourish-and shoves one that direction. “Here. Tell me if you think it needs anything else.”
“It won’t.”
“Thanks for having faith in me.”
Startled-ice eyes regard the offered cheese, pasta, slow coils of hearty steam. “You saved me. You and him.”
Incontrovertible, that tone. Unshakable, amid a fractured world: this is one thing, says that voice, that I do know.
It’s not just about the day they’d brought him home. It’s about the beer, and Star Trek, and macaroni. It’s the answering I love you.
“Right,” Sam agrees, “so you can help me with this, bring more beer, and sometimes it’s not a bad thing to love a story so much you want to hear it again, never get sick of it, know it’ll always be there for you, know what I mean?”
“You’re saying your cooking,” Bucky murmurs, “can be Star Trek,” and Sam blinks, and has to laugh. The oven and the plates and the cozy scent of melted cheese brighten up conspiratorially too.
And then Bucky adds, meditatively, “…babe,” and Sam nearly drops all three plates on his foot, he’s laughing so hard.
Bucky grins. Not quite a laugh, but the emotion’s there, glinting through all the ghostly labyrinths. “Revenge.”
“I’m gonna make you watch reality tv,” Sam threatens, “you’re gonna meet the Kardashians,” and Steve yells plaintively from the other room, “You’re missing the best part!” and they exchange the exact same glance and head out to feed Captain America macaroni and cheese so he’ll stop saying things like “Gosh!” every time a new alien race appears on screen.
Around eleven, Steve’s hand tangles into Bucky’s hair; Sam looks up and gets the other hand rubbing his shoulder in a way that’s got a certain meaning. Steve might still blush talking about sex, but he definitely likes having it, and tonight’s a good night, a dreamy kind of night, ordinary and hence extraordinary; they fumble their way down the hall in a tangle of limbs and hands and quick breaths and shared kisses, and fall into bed.
That’s extraordinary too. Always is.
Steve’s exactly the kind of lover everyone’d expect Captain America to be: attentive, devoted, respectful, and well-endowed all over, and all of those’re damn good things. Bucky’s even quieter in bed than he is out of it, which is saying something, but it’s not a bad kind of quiet; it’s tinged with a kind of eager reverence, like he’s determined to make every time the best of their lives, each time he’s given the chance. Somewhat surprisingly, or maybe not surprisingly at all, he’s more adventurous than Steve when it comes to slightly kinky activities, like the time Sam playfully smacked him on the ass and then discovered that the resultant gasp had been one of desire. They’ve all realized that some nights he needs the pain. Counterbalancing the memories. Annealing. Cleansing through fire.
Tonight’s not one of those nights, though. Tonight’s made for long drawn-out kisses and hushed little moans and bodies moving against each other. Piercing sweetness, like shattering crystal in the dark.
Sam, as usual, ends up rather proud of the fact that, despite sharing a bed with two super-soldiers and their respective strength and stamina and non-existent recovery periods, he’s not in fact the one worn out first. He’s got skills. The two well-muscled centenarians in his bed’re still learning. Lots of exploration. Which is just fine by him.
None of them sleeps much-different but understood old scars-but Sam generally manages to sleep the most, being non-super-human and all. Bucky sleeps the least, though that’s at least in part because the Winter Soldier gets a little uncomfortable if no one’s on guard. In part it has to do with the nightmares, of course, but the rest is just Bucky trying, in one of the only ways he knows, to protect the two people he loves.
Steve’s somewhere in the middle, because super-soldiers can live on fewer hours of rest but also crash hard when they come down, and Steve pushes himself more than anyone Sam’s ever known. Captain America needs to be the best. To be the hero. Because the world will always need saving.
At present the world seems pretty sated, though, all drowsy afterglow, stickiness, messy sheets and hushed purely happy random touches. Contentment in Steve’s sweat-damp hair. In the glint of winter-sky eyes through familiar bedroom shadows. In the satisfied thrumming of Sam’s body. Damn good.
When they do sleep, Steve sprawls out on his stomach in the center of the bed, relaxed in a way he’s only been since they’ve been living here, together, all of them come home. He ends up face-down in the pillows, arms and legs everywhere; Sam looks at him, catches Bucky looking at him too, and knows they’re thinking it in unison: God, we love this man.
Bucky balances on Steve’s right, on the edge of the giant plush mattress, probably in case he needs to throw a knife or kick an intruder in the head or something, although he’s getting better about the whole trying to take up as little space as possible so as not to impose issue. Sam’d asked once, “Aren’t you afraid you’re gonna, y’know, fall off the bed?” and had gotten a blank look and a flat, “No.” A week or so and multiple Hydra-related bruises and extremely enthusiastic thank-god-we’re-alive sex later, Steve and Sam had been awakened by an abrupt movement from that side, bed shaking around them.
Bucky has excellent reflexes even when exhausted down to the bone. Would point out, if asked, that he’d not technically fallen off the bed, courtesy of a metal arm and hair-trigger instincts. Steve and Sam have tactfully not asked. Sam’s noticed that a few more inches of bed keep appearing over there, though, and it’s way easier to reach Bucky for sleepy kisses when he’s closer to the middle.
Sam himself can and does sleep pretty much anywhere, a military service record’ll do that, but they’ve worked out that it’s probably best he sleeps on Steve’s other side. If Bucky has one of those nightmares, it’s better for everyone if Steve’s the one who gets hit with a flailing metal arm.
If Steve has a nightmare-rare, but it happens; Captain America’s lost a lot of friends, a lot of family, a lot of time-Bucky’s instantly awake to hold him, and Sam’s there to talk. That works, too.
If Sam has a nightmare-well, he went through a phase of not telling them about it, they’ve both been through hells worse than his own, secret experimentation and cryo-freeze time-travel mind-fucks and brainwashing torture. But it’s kind of useless trying to hide an elevated heart rate and gasping breaths and frantic memories of watching his old partner fall out of the sky, or at least it’s useless when both his current partners have heightened senses and a lot of concern. Steve had put an arm around his shoulders and said, sincerity ringing through every word, “you know our stories don’t make yours any less real.” Bucky’d leaned against him on the other side, the tentative weight speaking whole encyclopedias, and offered, “I’m sorry I used your pizza dough for experimental rifle practice last week, I can try to help you make more.”
Sam had started laughing through the shakiness, and got out, “No, it’s cool, I made extra, it’s in the freezer, I love you, both of you, come here-” and they’d held each other for a while, just being tangibly present and in love and alive.
Tonight, he sticks a leg between both of Steve’s-hears the sleepy rumble-and taps toes over Bucky’s ankle, making sure to telegraph the motion first. After a second, Bucky moves the leg to rest atop Sam’s foot, an assertion, a yes.
Around three in the morning Bucky wakes up screaming. Only one scream, really; he’s fighting to hold it back even as the sound splinters the night. Steve and Sam sit up in unison-that’s choreographed by habit, by now-and Steve gets both hands on his shoulders and holds him until those eyes stop seeing cold metal implements and sadistic faces and start seeing the present instead. The shaking starts after that; Steve promptly moves over and Sam scoots in and they get Bucky settled between them, safely wrapped up in body heat and murmured grounding words and hands rubbing warmth back into icy skin.
Eventually, both hands-one metal and one flesh, but equally cold-reach out for them in turn. The shivering eases. Another night, a few more careful kisses, and they’re all still here. Yes.
No apocalyptic crisis arises in the dwindling last hours before dawn, and they sleep until almost eight for once, awakening in the same pile of affectionate arms and legs and blankets. Bucky, both eyes open, lies between them a bit uncertainly; the how’d I get here, shouldn’t I not enjoy being trapped between bodies, is it all right to want to stay for a second more? is written all over his face, because the Winter Soldier is the complete opposite of an emotionless implacable assassin, especially on golden-hued soft-pillowed mornings.
Steve yawns and inquires, “More Star Trek and pancakes in bed?” Sam yawns because it’s contagious-Bucky doesn’t, which, what the hell, how’s that level of resistance even possible-and mumbles, “Your plan has one major flaw, and it’s called a lack of maple syrup.”
Steve looks sleepily attractively disappointed, but only for a moment, because Captain America can rise to any occasion. “Cereal?”
Bucky, remaining very still between them, offers, “I can go find us maple syrup.”
They both look at him. The words float out and settle into the morning, bumping gently against dresser drawers, sunbeams, rumpled sheets, bare skin. The idea should sound absurd-the Winter Soldier in a supermarket, standing in line, paying for breakfast items-and maybe it does, a little. But it’s a good kind of absurdity. The kind that feels like home.
“I promise not to kill anyone,” Bucky says. “Really. Not even if they’ve got twelve items when the sign says ten or fewer.”
Steve opens his mouth. Sam, about ninety percent sure that’s a joke, jumps in before Steve can go all concerned-protective-fortress about this brand-new suggestion. “Pretty sure it’s legal for you to threaten them after fifteen. If you can handle bananas too, I’ll throw banana-bread coffee-cake together.”
“Threatening…no guns, only knives.” Definitely teasing, now. With appreciation lurking in the crooked pale mazes behind those eyes. “And I can…handle…bananas. I thought you noticed. Last night. Should I demonstrate again?”
“Oh my God,” Sam says, “did you just make a sex joke about fruit, seriously, that was terrible, we’re gonna have to work on your pick-up lines, you’re lucky we’re already in bed with you.” Steve looks at both of them with utter delight and says, “Fruit is part of a healthy breakfast. I think we should be healthy this morning. With bananas.”
“Not you too,” Sam mourns, “surrounded by awful puns, what did I ever do to deserve this,” and tries to put his head under the closest pillow. Steve takes it away. “You love us.”
“Yeah, I do, but you’re lucky you’re not trying to pick me up in a bar or something with those lines, is all I’m sayin’-”
Bucky says, “We love you,” quiet and fervent, whole broken and beautiful heart right there in those eyes, those words.
Sam sits up and pulls them both into a shared kiss under the tumbling morning sunlight and says, “I know.”