#birdhapley

"I don't mean to be pushy," she finally says, "or to repeat myself, but Sam...why are you sitting in a truck in the dark?"

"We literally just-"

"No, I'm asking why you're sitting in a truck in the dark instead of going home to talk to Bucky."

Sam sighs. "I'm pulled up in front of the house."

"Sam."

"I've been here for a while; I just can't make myself go in. I keep thinking, what if we had all these almosts and then we spent a year scrambling for time together and this is how it ends because that wasn't enough? Daisy, what if this is it?"

"Don't let it be," says Daisy. "And don't tell me you don't have that power, because I know you do."

"But how do-"

"I don't know how, but I know it's not happening in the truck. Go inside, Sam," she says, and hangs up before he can argue.

Daisy isn't above texting Bucky to inform him that Sam is sitting in his own driveway in the dark like a creep, so it's pure concern for his own dignity that sends Sam towards the front door.

Bucky's back is to him when he comes in, but Sam doesn't think for a second that Bucky doesn't know he's there: his whole body goes still, like he's braced for catastrophe and doesn't want to set anything off by flinching at the wrong moment.

Sam gently presses the door shut and tosses his keys in the dish by the door, toeing off his shoes and making his way to the kitchen. Bucky still hasn't turned around.

Now that he's closer, Sam can see that he's pressing focaccia into a pan, the sleeve of his borrowed sweatshirt sliding down his arm and getting perilously close to dipping into the herb-flecked dough. Wordlessly, Sam reaches over and pushes up Bucky's right sleeve, folding the cuff over a couple times so it stays up and out of his way.

Bucky relaxes into Sam's touch, canting a little bit in his direction without even lifting his eyes from the pan.

On a hunch, Sam takes a risk and rests his chin on Bucky's shoulder, peering down at the two square pans of dough in front of them. "If these are apology focaccias," he says, "you have to let me go first, because there's no way I can follow freshly baked bread."

For a moment, Bucky is still stiff as a board, but when he finally lets himself lean into Sam's warmth, Sam feels something slot back into place in the center of his chest.

"It's not apology focaccia," Bucky says quietly.

"Oh," says Sam, trying to take it into stride. He'd just been so certain that--

"The bread is for dinner," Bucky continues. "But there's an apology pie in the fridge right now that's definitely gonna be a tough act to follow, so I'll let you go first anyway."

Sam pushes his reading glasses up his nose, frowning at his phone.

“I think I’m gonna cancel the Instagram live tomorrow,” he says. “They’ll notice I’m in a different space than usual and then the entire comments section is just going to be questions about where I am and why there’s a picture of Alpine on the fridge. Maybe I’ll reschedule it for later, or do something longer on YouTube and make a recipe and take questions or something, then that’ll be the more casual video for the month, so that’s something off of Torres’s plate, too…”

Sam glances up at Bucky distractedly and finds him leaning against the doorway, watching Sam with a lazy smirk on his face. “What is it?”

Bucky shrugs, not looking away from Sam. “Nothing.”

“Bucky.”

“Samuel.”

“What.”

With a snort, Bucky straightens up and crosses over to the edge of the bed, plucking Sam’s phone out of his hands and putting it on the bedside table. Sam’s squawk of protest fades as Bucky braces his hand against the headboard and climbs onto the bed, his knees on either side of Sam’s thighs.

He looks down at Sam, grinning. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re cute when you’re stressing about logistics?”

Sam snorts. “I learned from the best,” he says, and puts a hand on Bucky’s hip to keep him steady. “One day, I, too, will look stupidly hot in a groomsman’s suit while panicking over a dozen wedding cakes.”

“See?” comes Bucky’s voice, much closer than it was a second ago and just a touch more smug. “Perfect timing.”

“Yeah, yeah,” grouses Sam, but he can’t help but grin when Bucky kisses his cheek and rests his chin on Sam’s shoulder, his arm slung around Sam’s waist.

It’s quiet and cozy and maybe concerningly domestic for a relationship that’s still coming up on the two month mark, which is maybe why the universe chooses this moment for Bucky’s front door to bang open.

They both jump a little, Sam squaring up with the metal spatula in hand to face…Becca Barnes.

She’s talking as she comes through the door, already halfway through what he assumes is supposed to be a conversation with Bucky. 

“...seriously texted you like six times, and you still didn’t answer, and then when I called you, it rolled to voicemail, so I came here to make sure that you were- oh, shit.”

“Hi, Becca,” Sam says, since there’s no words coming from the statue at his back.

“Hi, Sam,” she says, looking positively gleeful. “I didn’t know you were in town.”

“Bucky!” He turns to look over his shoulder. “You didn’t tell your family I was going to be here?”

“I didn’t want certain people barging in to hog your time, but somehow she made it here anyway,” Bucky says darkly. He takes the spatula from Sam and lifts the last four syrniki from the pan, setting them on the platter with the rest of them.

Becca tosses her stuff beside the couch, setting two cups of coffee on the counter and greeting Sam with a hug.

“I stopped in to check on you, you doofus,” she says, settling into a stool at the island. “I’m not hogging anyone’s time.”

“Don’t worry,” Sam tells her in a stage whisper. “It’s not about you. He’s just jealous that he already has to share Alpine with me.”

“Share you with Alpine, more like,” Bucky says, and for all his grousing, he puts a plate at Becca’s seat first before turning to get the platter from beside the stove. “Two years it’s just been me and her, and then I finally get a man and what does she try to do? Steal him.”

“Shameless,” tuts Becca, in a very good imitation of every old lady Sam’s ever met at church. “Using her cuteness for evil that way.”

“Well, she’ll have to work harder than that,” says Sam, setting the punnet of berries on the table. “Cute doesn’t do anything for me; I like ‘em grumpy and pathologically incapable of waking up before seven.”

“I have literally woken up at the crack of dawn to help you make danishes,” says Bucky, passing a mug of coffee to Sam. “This is slander.”

Sam raises an eyebrow, grinning. “Who says that I was talking about you?”

“You’re the worst,” says Bucky. “I’ve just decided that Alpine can have you, actually. I hope you’re very happy together.”

“Aw, baby, don’t be like that,” laughs Sam. “I would never leave you for the cat. Who would make me Russian food?”

He and Tandy have spent nearly every night patrolling the streets, because with this kind of catastrophe come power vacuums and people ruthless enough to fill them. Usually, he gets back around dawn, too exhausted to do anything but collapse into bed.

Tonight, though, it’s raining so hard that even the criminals have opted to stay home. They’d checked a few of their usual spots with no luck, just ended up soaked to the bone for their trouble. Ty thinks he might have tried to stay out longer, but Tandy’s teeth were chattering so loudly that he could hear it over the rain, and he hadn’t wanted her to get sick.

He hadn’t thought about it before cloaking them back to his house. Before Ty could offer to take her back to her mom’s place, Tandy was grabbing clothes from his chest of drawers and a towel from the linen closet–just beyond his parents’ bedroom–before tossing him one, too. Ty had told her to use the bathroom attached to his bedroom and headed down to the hall bath to give her some space. Room to breathe had been a rare luxury, when they were on their cross-country vigilante-ing trip, and it’s been a strange transition to not be attached at the hip anymore, but Ty can’t begrudge Tandy something she hasn’t had in so long.

Ty’s shower is utilitarian at best, just enough to get warm again. He doesn’t want to go back into his room, so he goes downstairs instead, flicking on the lights as he does.

He means to sit up and wait for Tandy so he can take her home, but the drumming of the rain fills up the quiet long enough that he dozes off, his head pillowed on his arms.

When he wakes up, it’s to the sound of someone moving around in the kitchen. There’s a blanket draped over him, too, one of the ones his mom used to keep draped over the armchair but never used.

He has to blink a few times before Tandy becomes clearer.

“What are you looking for?” he asks, as she closes a cabinet. She’s wearing his St. Seb’s sweatshirt, he realizes, the sleeves pushed up and bunching at her elbows.

“I was going to make you tea or hot cocoa or something, but I realized I don’t know where anything is,” she says. “Also like, I’ve only ever made Swiss Miss, and that fancy cocoa powder that your mom has in the pantry is anything but Swiss Miss. The entire label is in French.”

Ty can’t help but snort. “The Harbinger of Hope herself, intimidated by a box of cocoa.”

“It’s very French, okay?” Tandy says, but she’s smiling a little as she makes her way over to him. “Not all of us went to fancy private school.”

There are plenty of places to sit that aren’t right beside him, but that’s exactly where Tandy goes, scooting in close enough that her knee presses against his.

“You’re not sleeping,” she says, as bluntly as she always does.

“How can I? My superhero partner keeps trying to make me tea at one in the morning,” Ty volleys back, but it rings false to his own ears.

Tandy just raises an eyebrow at him, unmoved. Ty looks away first.

“Half the world disappeared, Tandy,” he says. “Is anybody sleeping these days?”

‘Are you?’ he wants to add, but doesn’t. He won’t make her feel guilty for not losing her only family. They don’t do that to each other.

“Is that it?” asks Tandy, her voice quieter than before. “That’s the only reason?”

Ty looks up at her, more sharply than he means to. She winces, shaking her head a little.

“Fuck, sorry,” she says. “You lost your parents, Ty, that’s reason enough to not be able to sleep. That’s- I’m not saying that that’s nothing.”

He doesn’t have the words to reassure her, so he just gently bumps his shoulder into hers. “I know.”

She doesn’t look as stricken after a moment, but she still looks sad. “We’re supposed to protect this city, and we couldn’t do anything to stop what happened,” she says, “but I don’t think that’s the reason I can’t sleep.”

Her eyebrows are furrowed, her gaze fixed determinedly on the cuffs of Ty’s sweatshirt. She doesn’t say anything else after that, just picks at the hem of the sweatshirt. It’s a habit of hers that he first saw in Texas, he thinks, then caught again in New Mexico and again in California. If he waits long enough, she’ll say whatever it is that she needs to say, but it always seems like it costs her something to do it. 

He reaches his hand out to her instead of prodding, leaves his palm up and his fingers spread a little. It takes a moment for her to notice, but her hand is warm when it comes to rest in his, her fingers sure as they interlace with his own.

He thinks of the almost-year that they spent in each other’s pockets, crisscrossing the country and saving money by sharing rooms wherever they went. They’ve always been able to count on each other in the heat of battle, but it had felt different, on the nights when bad dreams kept Ty up, to look over and know that Tandy was sleeping a few feet away.

It’s possible, Ty realizes, that he’s not the only one who felt that way.

“It’s not the only reason,” he says, after a moment, answering her question from earlier. When Tandy looks up at him with wide eyes, he repeats himself. “It’s not the only reason I can’t sleep.”