#ironfalcon

“This okay?” Sam asked, voice hushed, as he reached the last button.

“Yeah.”

He pushed the shirt off of Tony’s shoulders, tossing it over towards the hamper, and went to work on the belt. Tony took back over dressing after that, and Sam stripped off his own shirt and jeans. They crawled into bed together, Sam clutching Tony close. He’d missed this. Since everything fell apart, he’d missed this. The physical intimacy.

They’d been exchanging letters since a few months after Steve broke Sam out of The Raft. There’d been accusations and apologies and confessions, fear and guilt and love expressed through words.

Somehow, somehow… they’d managed to work things out between them, to save the relationship they’d had.

Hands shaking, Sam curled himself more into Tony’s chest and closed his eyes tight.

There was one thing they’d never talked about.

Sam had never asked. Tony never offered.

That probably said a lot.

“I know… I know that something went down, in Siberia. Steve won’t talk about it; Barnes was down an arm.” He waited, but Tony said nothing, fingers still stroking through Sam’s short hair in an easy, slow rhythm. “What happened, Tony?”

After what felt like several intense moments of silence, Tony said, “If I tell you, you have to promise me not to make a big deal out of it.”

Sam tensed.

“I’m… mostly over it. Enough so that I can work with them both. I don’t – if things get made a big deal out of, it’ll just make it all fresh again, make it harder for everyone to work together.” He paused. “I don’t know if I’ll ever really be able to forgive Steve, Sam. But I can enough to work with him. To be friendly. But not if we’re reliving that mess again.”

Sighing, Sam said, “Fine. I’ll not make a big deal out of it.”

“Or bother Steve?”

“Or bother Steve. Or Barnes. Not about Siberia, at least.”

“Fair enough,” Tony said, and blew out a bracing breath.

Slowly, Tony recited events from then. Pieces fell into place that Sam had been missing, Steve’s anger and odd guilt, Barnes’ quiet resignation. Sam breathed through the anger – with all three of them, honestly; with Zemo especially – and just listened.

When Tony trailed off, Sam knew he was leaving something out. He pressed a kiss to Tony’s chest, and Tony’s fingers twitched against his back.

“None of us were willing to stop,” Tony said, voice only trembling a little. “Steve… brought the shield….”

Sam realized he wasn’t breathing, that the only sound was Tony’s slightly rough and slightly too fast breathing.

“I got lucky. The suit was totaled, but the metal didn’t tear too badly through the undersuit’s material, and – I mean there was some serious muscle bruising and a few fractures but…. It could have been much worse. My arm was the worst damage, and that was from the airport.”

Eyes closed, Sam struggled to find some calm in the fear and anger burning through him. He grappled for it, because Tony didn’t need his anger, he needed Sam’s calm, Sam’s acceptance.

“I love you,” was all Sam could find it in himself to offer.

Tony squeezed him closer. “I love you, too.”

~*~*~

Sam didn’t “make a big deal out of it”, like Tony had asked of him. He barely even glared at Steve the next morning, in fact.

He spent more time around Tony. That could easily be explained as missing his boyfriend, of course, so no one questioned it. He knew if he tried to hang around Steve just yet, with his anger and frustration and fear still simmering so close in his chest, he’d break his promise to Tony.

Keeping a promise to Tony was more important to him than giving Steve a talking too, like he deserved.

His boyfriend could defend himself if he wanted to. Sam needed to step back.

For now, at least.

Until this whole new mess was taken care of.

Until he was calmer.

Then, maybe, he and Steve would have a talk about “extreme options” and “triggering past trauma” and Sam would make it clear that if Steve wasn’t one of his best friends, and Tony hadn’t made it clear that he was mostly over it (and guilty of being just as vicious in the fight), Sam would not just be talking to Steve.