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Sam loves his boyfriends. There is no ifs, ands or buts about it, because it's simple and unconditional and true; Sam loves his boyfriends. However, pure and unstoppable love does not exclude them from the fact that they’re weird and annoying as fuck at 5:30 in the morning.
This is the usual hour that Sam and Steve silently roll out of bed to go running. Sam goes because he is not a century-ish old super solider with abs for days. Steve goes because he's catholic and has been punishing himself in weird ways since 1926. Bucky sleeps in until they've both showered and started breakfast, and even then he really doesn't wake up until after two cups of coffee and a plate and a half of food.
(Steve has said multiple times, to Bucky and anyone else in the room who is therefore forced to listen, that this is exactly the way Bucky went to work when they were teenagers. Of course there was the exception that they didn't have this much coffee or food, so it was likely that Bucky woke up sometime around noon. On good days this story makes Bucky roll his eyes to keep up his assassin-may-care reputation, and on bad days it brings him back from whatever he sees at the end of his thousand yard stare.)
But today is Sunday, and Sundays are different. Sundays are different because it's the one day that everyone sleeps in, and the three of them stay snuggled in bed, and damn it Sundays are so Sam's calf muscles and hamstrings can fucking breathe for a minute. Sam's legs live for Sundays. Which is the exact reason why Sam is laying in bed, between his two beloved boyfriends, underneath their super cozy and hella thick IKEA duvet, contemplating how to smother the six foot two piece of American history back to sleep so he would stop squirming so goddamn much.
"Steve," he whispers, because Sam is benevolent and willing to give the man a chance to correct his wrongs, "Steve, it’s five in the morning."
"It's five thirty.” Steve whispers back, because he is stupid, while rolling over and blinking bright blue eyes at Sam, eyes that are clearly wide awake, because he is very, very stupid.
"It's Sunday.” This is Sam trying. This is an olive branch.
"It's the first day of fall, though." This is Steve, soon to be killed by his boyfriend’s pillow case.
Sam rolls over because he's really not willing to watch Steve go from earnest to puppy and noses into the back of Bucky's neck instead. Bucky is sleep warm and breathing deeply, hair fanned out against the edge of Sam's pillow while he faces the window. Since he's come home he hasn't slept any other way, but he sleeps, so Sam and Steve leave him be even if it means that they have a thicker blanket all year because Bucky doesn't like being cold.
"It'll be really nice and brisk outside." Steve runs his fingers up Sam's back, a cheap and dirty tactic that he uses on running days when Sam's will power is weakened by a warm and sleepy Barnes who sometimes turns around to snuggle after the sun rises and he feels a bit more safe.
Sam takes a lengthy minute and considers punching Steve in the face. It's Sunday. "Shh, Bucky's sleeping." He says instead, giving himself a mental pat on the back for the lack of spousal abuse happening in his pre dawn bedroom right now. In the afternoon he'll call his sister who is a sensible human being and also observes the "everyone sleeps in on Sundays or so help me God" rule. She'll probably send him a pie to commemorate his great behaviour.
"He's totally awake." Steve's not even bothering to whisper anymore, so Sam turns over and glares at him while making vague gestures over his shoulder at Bucky, who is clearly asleep, because it's Sunday. "Buck's been awake for twenty minutes. C'mon Bucky, tell 'im."
And this, this is the sticky part, because this isn't the first time that Steve's internal clock has been obnoxious and woken him up ridiculously early. In all fairness, they're all soldiers, and they all have their scars. Steve always manages to bring too much home. No matter where they sleep, Bucky won't sleep unless he can use his body to protect the two of them from a shot that he would take. Sam cannot, and probably will not, ever sleep on a holiday accompanied by fireworks. Steve can, because his war didn't sound like that, and Bucky can even though his wars have, because it's not the bombs he threw that keep him up at night. They stay up with Sam on those nights all the same, just like he's sat on the couch with them when their heads are too loud, because they're a team, and they love each other.
Keep in mind, they love each other and they are a team, so when Sam slowly starts to turn over again, murder alight in his heart, to see Bucky's head and shoulders slowly dipping off the side of the bed, he pauses for a minute in absolute incredulous shock, because does his boyfriend actually think that rolling off the bed is going to work? Because they love each other and they're a team, when Steve gets into one of his moods (i.e. Being ridiculous and not letting Sam get his deserved beauty sleep), Bucky gets up and goes out with him. And Sam will admit this is him being a little bit spoiled because they've never actually talked about this, it's just kind of been happening for the past year. He's always made sure that Bucky knows that Sam noticed that he rolled out of bed and went running with Steve when Sam had clearly not been up for it, whether it had been just after a mission or an emergency call from the VA (or that Tuesday his four year old niece wanted a bed time story at one am but didn't want to wake up her mommy or daddy and just found one of their cell phones instead), but for christ’s sakes it’s Sunday, and Sam has a routine.
"Wha, wha, what," Sam stuttered, not at all appreciating Steve's "He's escaping," explanation while watching his boyfriend's chest disappear under the edge of the bed, or Steve's "He's doing it very well," endorsement when Bucky used his frankly ridiculous and unfair amount of core strength to slowly bring the rest of his lower body completely perpendicular to their bed before lowering himself onto their hard wood floors without a sound. Sam's pretty sure he would be hard right now from watching that stunt if he wasn't so angry that he was awake at what was now five forty five on a Sunday morning.
Scratch that, Bucky did that silently and has more or less escaped his wrath and is probably curled up under their bed right now, having decided that a cold floor is better than getting dragged on a run by Captain Assmerica. Sam is 100% hard in his pyjama pants and battling between being angry that Bucky has left him to their golden retriever/honey badger boyfriend and wanting to crawl under the bed with none of that power or grace and make out with his very-much-still-scary-hot-assassin-boyfriend. Seriously. It's five forty six in the morning. What is Sam Wilson's life.
"So, run?"
Sam groans as loud and long as he can, using every dramatic alveoli in his lungs while gearing up his legs to physically kick Steve out of the bed. Because they love each other and they are a team, Steve makes a very fake "oof" sound and rolls out of bed. Then, because Steve is the biggest little shit he knows, he starts to hum the Frozen song while he changes. Sam's niece is on a Frozen kick, has been since the movie came out and hasn't slowed down since, and had very loudly begged her Uncle Sam Sam to sing it to her on that Tuesday night. Sam has yet to live it down.
So of course, Sam makes sure to throw Steve's pillow at the back of his Disney singing head while wrapping the giant duvet around himself until he resembled the grumpiest sexy ass burrito known to man. He specifically made sure to bounce around a little extra as a nice and subtle fuck you, Barnes, to his beloved partner under the bed.
It's Sunday.
-
Steve locks the front door behind him, sweaty and sated and ready for a nap. He made sure to stay out for a bit longer than usual so Sam and Bucky could get back to sleep. He really had tried to sleep in today, but his body just wasn't having it. The leaves were starting to change and the air was getting sharper, and even when he was small and his lungs were much more fragile, this had always been his favourite part of the year.
Of course, back in the 20s when he wanted to get up early to go out on the fire escape and draw, Bucky would just roll over and pin him down with his body weight with a muffled "Stevie, no", and then that was it. There was no budging a sleeping Barnes back then, which was probably why Bucky used this trick on Sam now instead of wasting his time on Steve.
Steve didn't blame him for a second. Sam was the best cuddler out of the three of them.
Which was exactly why he wasn't surprised when he walked back into their bedroom to find his boyfriends curled up together on the bed. Sam had been divested of his duvet burrito and was on his back, both of his arms wrapped around Bucky who was nestling into Sam's stomach like it was a pillow. Bucky must have turned on the heat before crawling back into bed, because their blanket was half on the floor and the room was warmer than the hallway.
Steve leaned against the threshold for a minute, committing the shadows across Sam's face and Bucky's back to memory to draw later. Then he pounced onto the bed, receiving a half squawk-half battle cry from Sam and Bucky's human elbow to the ribs. Sam's back to yelling half words at him while Bucky uses his momentum and just rolls himself off the bed. He lands with a thump that has Sam turning over again, now yelling at Bucky and asking him why he keeps on leaving, it's Sunday, which gets a very clearly enunciated Russian reply, meaning Bucky's faking his early morning language confusion and has been awake since Steve left. Then the duvet starts moving off the side of the bed and Steve doesn't know when he’s going to be able to stop laughing. It’s not like he needs to; it is Sunday after all.