there's a story at the bottom of this bottle

"Sam, I know everybody loves you, but I'm sure they have better things to do than try to trick you into dating someone. How would that even work? Do they just bring someone along to any event that they think you'll be at, just in case?"

"It's usually more collaborative than that," says Sam, matter-of-fact, and Bucky feels his eyebrows go up. "Back in the summer, a bunch of my aunties guilted me into taking my name off the on-call roster and coming to Sarah's Fourth of July party, and then all fifteen of them brought along someone they 'just wanted to introduce me to'. The only reason we didn't run low on food is because Sarah suspected something."

"Did she warn you?"

Sam pulls a face. "Only when I was walking into the backyard and about to get pounced on."

Bucky can't help it; he laughs. "I knew she was my favorite Wilson for a reason."

He feels Sam lightly cuff him on the shoulder. "Keep talking, Barnes, and I'll tell my aunties to find you someone to settle down with, too."

"Might put a damper on your pretend-to-be-soulmates plan though, huh?"

"Annoy me enough and I might just be willing to make the sacrifice," says Sam. He holds out his hand. "Now give me your phone; I have to fix your lockscreen."

"What? What's wrong with my lockscreen?"

"You literally just use the default screen, Buck."

"And somehow that's going to make your family believe we're not telling the truth? A gray gradient?"

"Of course it is! And you say I'm the one who's bad at undercover work."

"You are bad at undercover work," says Bucky. "You really think your family is going to be checking what's on my phone screen? I'm sure they're committed, Sam, but they can't be that committed."

Sam is quiet for a moment. Then, out of nowhere, he says, "Hey, I wanted to call Sarah and the boys before they go to bed. What time is it right now?"

Bucky goes to look at his watch, but remembers that he took it off so he could apply the tattoo, so he changes course and slips his phone out of his pocket, pressing the button on the side to light up the screen. "It's a quarter to--"

"See?" says Sam, cutting him off and plucking Bucky's phone out of his hands. "Plenty of ways for someone to end up seeing the screen of your phone without even trying."

Privately, he admits to himself that Sam has a point. Out loud, he just huffs. "And what's the magical background that's going to make your family believe that we're deeply in love?"

"This," says Sam, and holds up Bucky's phone, the camera already open and switched to selfie mode. Before Bucky knows it, Sam has an arm slung around his shoulders, and then he's leaning in to press a kiss to Bucky's cheek and taking the picture right as he does it.

Bucky's eyes go wide, all the input from his senses going dull except for the feeling of Sam beside him: solid muscle pressed up against his arm, the heat of his breath ghosting along Bucky's neck, the sound of his laugh as he taps at the screen to see how the picture turned out.

They'd ironed out the details for this days ago, when Sam had first come to Bucky to pitch this pretend relationship plan and Bucky had found himself agreeing. They're already plenty physical in the field, so hugs and hand-holding didn't seem like they needed to be a question, but Sam had asked about them anyway. When he'd asked if Bucky might be okay with a kiss on the cheek or forehead, Bucky had shrugged and said it would be fine, and until this moment, he'd fully believed that it would be. How was he supposed to know that getting Sam in his space like this would feel like a thousand things all at once, like the swoop in his belly from riding the Cyclone but also like the fluttering of something delicate and precious somewhere in the center of his chest?

At the feeling of an elbow nudging his side, Bucky feels the world rushing back up to meet him again.

"Buck?" says Sam, and from the look on his face, it's clear that it's not the first time. He holds the phone up so the picture is in Bucky's line of sight. "What do you think?"

The photo is a little bit blurry, its lighting not quite flattering for either of them. Bucky's expression is just lifting into surprise, eyes wide even as his mouth is still curved into a frown. Beside him, Sam's eyes are closed as he kisses Bucky's cheek, his free hand resting against Bucky's chest, right over his heart. Looking down at the screen, Bucky feels his stomach do the swooping thing again, and for the first time, he starts to wonder just what he's gotten himself into.

"It's fine," he says, clearing his throat when it comes out hoarse. "Did, um- are you going to use the same one for your phone? Are we supposed to take a different one?"

"Nah," says Sam. "I've got that covered."

He gives Bucky's phone back and pulls his own out of his pocket, tapping it to make the screen light up. There, under the time and a stack of notifications that he swipes away, is a picture of Bucky sprawled on the couch in the afternoon light, with a baby Alpine perched on his chest and peering into his face. He's clearly in the middle of a conversation with her, one hand gesticulating while the other is gently braced behind her so she doesn't fall.

Bucky glances over at the other side of the room then, towards the now-grown Alpine who's busy batting around the new toy that Sam bought her. Sam takes pictures of Alpine all the time, and he's always sending them to Bucky and to the Wilson family group chat, but Bucky has never seen this one. For almost a year, Sam just...had this picture of Alpine and Bucky saved on his phone? What does it mean, that Sam had it and never shared it? What does it mean that he picked it now, when he needed a picture to prove that he was in love with Bucky?

He's so caught up in thinking about it that he doesn't even realize when Sam heads for the door to the apartment, shrugging on his jacket as he looks back towards where Bucky is frozen to the floor. He's saying something about food, about the shawarma place on the corner, but Bucky's heart is pounding too loudly for him to really hear it.

He takes a few steadying breaths to clear his head, eyes still on Sam, and the thudding quiets just in time for him to hear Sam ask, "You ready, Buck?"

Bucky looks at his phone again, at the picture of him and Sam pressed close to each other and looking like they belong there.

“—I guess they don’t make ‘em like that anymore,” Sam finishes for Sarah, and they share a grin over the memory of it.

“She might’ve been right,” Sarah continues. “I can’t think of anyone I dated who could pull off something that smooth.”

“What about Dad?” asks Cass. “Not even him?”

When Sarah laughs, it’s soft, full of the warmth that’s always colored her when she talks about him. “Your Dad never did anything smooth in his life,” she says, grinning. “That’s why I liked him so much the second we met. He cared too much to be cool about it.”

Sam remembers Aaron that way, too, all nervous energy on the wedding day and bouncing enthusiasm on the way to the delivery room. His breath catches a little with the ache of loss, and almost immediately he feels Bucky lean into him, the warm and reassuring press of his shoulder into Sam’s.

He opens his mouth, trying to think of something to say, but he's saved the trouble by Bucky.

"It's probably gone a little out of fashion now, too," Bucky says. "Like hats and suits and pomade. Used to be that if you were walking with someone and you wanted 'em to know you cared, you would make sure you walked closer to the street, so you were the first to deal with any trouble that came your way."

Cass turns around fully, looking up at Bucky with interest now. "What kind of trouble would come your way?"

Sam can think of a few things that might've come Bucky's way, depending on who exactly he'd been walking beside all those years ago, but Bucky just shrugs and smiles down at Cass. "Puddles, mostly. You never know when a car's gonna drive too close to the curb and soak you from head to toe."

The boys absorb this information for a moment. Then AJ says, "I'm glad you do that with Uncle Sam. His Cap suit is so white; if he got splashed with a puddle, I don't think it'd ever look the same again."

Vaguely, Sam registers Bucky explaining the suit's self-cleaning nanites to the boys and the boys asking if they can have self-cleaning clothes so they never have to worry about laundry. It's distant, though, pushed from his mind by something far more pressing.

He can still feel the heat of Bucky beside him, shoulder right up against Sam's, the little jostle that Sam feels in his arm when Cass makes Bucky laugh at something. It occurs to him then that he's gotten pretty used to Bucky being on his right like this, steady and alert and—more importantly than all the rest—safe.

Sam makes himself rejoin the conversation then, bumps his shoulder against's Bucky's and makes a crack about his stealth suit and how he should just switch to it full time, and when Bucky does the expected thing and pouts about it, he reaches over and pats Bucky's hand placatingly.

"Just kidding, Buck," he says. "I would never dream of getting rid of your masterpiece."

"You already abandoned the helmet that came with it," grouses Bucky. "How are you supposed to avoid a concussion without the helmet?"

Sam keeps his hand where it is on top of Bucky's, the hum of vibranium so familiar now. From the way that Bucky stills, just for a second, Sam knows that he's noticed.

"Who needs a helmet?" asks Sam, keeping his voice light. "I've got you, don't I?"