Archive of Our Own

Sometimes being a good soldier didn’t mean fighting. Sometimes it meant knowing when to run instead.

Steve Rogers was a damn good soldier.

He fought only the men who attacked him, and then he ran. He ran right through a wall, out of a ‘recovery room’ that was supposedly in New York but felt wrong, smelled wrong, sounded wrong, and into a world that was…

Shiny. Slick. Too smooth and bright and glossy. Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

All he knew to do was run from it.

He tried to measure out all the wrong as it came, but there was too much. People came charging at him wearing wrong clothes, wrong hair, wrong weapons in their hands. Hydra, he thought, and that carried him right until he reached the big glass doors out into the world beyond.

Not Hydra, maybe. New York, or so he thought.

But not. Wrong. Jesus.

He ran, he flew, past wrong cars moving too fast and huge glossy slick buildings and bright glaring colored lights shining down from all directions. He couldn’t take it in, couldn’t understand it, couldn’t make it make sense, so he ran from it. You run or you fight, and there was no fighting this when he didn’t even know what the hell this was.

Tires screeched around him, horns blared. The streets felt narrower, or the buildings felt taller, and there were so many people, everywhere. Cars, flying past. He hoofed it down the middle of the street because the cars were safer, instinct said, than the people wearing black, carrying weapons, who’d been charging after him.

He shouldn’t have been there. He didn’t know how he knew that, he didn’t know why he felt a thousand years old, like he’d been floating in a black nothing, locked in the closet back home with the power out and no air moving anywhere. He should’ve been cold, still, dark, and he wasn’t. That felt just as wrong as the huge colored signs like movie screens around him, or the weird glossy finish that everything around him seemed to have.

He couldn’t catch his breath, but it wasn’t from running. Running hadn’t worn him out in years. It was something else making his throat want to close up, making his heart thud fast and his vision go blurry at the sides. It felt like the old days, like sickness, like something he couldn’t outrun no matter how fast he--

“Jesus, man!"

A hand flew at him from out of nowhere, clamping around his wrist and pulling him out of the road, onto a curb, onto a crowded sidewalk. Behind him a roar flew past, and he jerked away from the grip on his arm and stumbled further onto the sidewalk as he watched what almost looked like a motorbus whiz past him down the street.

“Hey. Hey!”

The bus was wrong. The cars were wrong, the air was wrong. He wasn’t supposed to be there, wherever the hell ‘there’ was.

“Hey, man. Look at me! Calm down!”

Steve was calm. Or, no, he wasn’t calm, but he didn’t panic. He never had. He did turn a little bit wildly when that touch reappeared on his arm, jerking away from it even as he finally faced the person responsible.

A man, a stranger, but calm-eyed and focused. Serious, grim, dark eyes that seemed to take Steve in in a snap. “You know who you are?”

Steve blinked, but nodded. “Yeah. Yes.”

“You know where you are?”

He shook his head, a stutter of movement.

The man didn’t look surprised. “Okay. Okay, I got you. Come here, let’s get away from the street. Just do me a favor and breathe a little bit.”

For a moment, as he let himself be pulled through the disinterested crowds on the sidewalk, Steve only obeyed. Breathed. Went along. And when his brain kicked in, a little late but still pretty reliable all the same, Steve still didn’t find himself pulling away.

All kinds of people around, but nobody spared him, or the guy dragging him up against a sleek, glossy glass building, a second look. People hurrying on their way, and that at least didn’t feel entirely wrong. There was no hum of movement like a busy New York City sidewalk.

“Good. Way to breathe, man.” The calm-eyed stranger took him in once they were safely away from traffic. His hand shifted from Steve’s wrist up his arm, settling there lightly. “Anything coming back to you?”

Steve frowned, but shook his head. He remembered dark, cold. Nothing. He remembered Peggy’s voice and his knuckles throbbing with aches that were slower to heal than normal thanks to Schmidt being so damned tough. A plane, a compass. Cold.

Nothing from that to the moment he woke up in a small room that wasn’t really a room at all.

The man moved in closer, his eyes locked on Steve’s. “Okay, okay, don’t start panicking on me. We’re in this together, okay? I’m not gonna leave you like this.”

Steve believed him. Believed him and felt some of that panic churning in his gut settle down, loosen its grip on him.

The man smiled carefully. “Good, better. What’s your name?”

He felt a moment’s hesitation, paranoia, whatever. But he swallowed it down. “Steve.”

“Steve. Nice to meet you Steve. I’m Sam.” The smile grew for a brief moment into a bright gap-toothed grin. “What branch you serve in?”

Steve blinked.

The man, Sam, shrugged. “It’s in your eyes, Steve. Nobody dissociates quite like a vet. You Marine? Army? I’m Air Force, myself.”

Steve frowned, unsure if he was still just confused or if not all those words made any sense. “Army,” he answered hesitantly.

Sam made a considering face, like there was some kinda joke in that answer that he wasn’t gonna say out loud, but he never lost the edges of that smile. He clapped Steve on the arm lightly. “Alright, Steve from the Army, why don’t we find a place to sit down for a bit, until you’re a little more clear on the hazy stuff.”

There was a whole huge bright and shiny world around him that looked wrong, felt wrong, was wrong, but damned if Steve didn’t find himself relaxing looking into those calm dark eyes. He swallowed down his apprehension as much as he could.

“Thanks, Sam. Okay. I think I could--”

“There he is!”

Steve hadn’t consciously been listening for a shout like that, but the moment he heard it it was like he’d expected it all along. He stiffened and whirled, spotting the press of black-clad men, soldiers, Hydra, whatever, pushing their way through the crowds up the block.

He didn’t waste words, didn’t waste a second. He pulled away from the comforting press of Sam’s hand and, like a soldier, he ran. The busy sidewalk and a strange kind of reluctance kept him from going full-speed, but he lost sight of the men in black pretty fast by ducking around a corner from one busy street to the next. He had a moment to look around, debate his next move.

There were bright storefronts around, garish fancy things that mostly made no damn sense when he looked at them. People humming around everywhere, and he wasn’t sure if he ought to stay in a crowd or head away from the masses. There was safety in spectators sometimes, but if it was Hydra he couldn’t see them hesitating to shoot even if innocent people got caught up the gunfire.

He heard a sound behind him, the affronted ‘hey!’ of someone that meant someone else was forcing their way through people. He instantly ducked into a doorway behind a slow-moving group of brightly-dressed strangers. He slipped through the rear ranks of the group, hiding himself in the middle of them and watching out of the corner of his eye as a few guys in full-out commando gear went tearing past the shop without even looking in.

Once they were past he let out a breath, suddenly aware of the strangers he was huddling himself up to.

“Sorry, ma’am,” he offered to one of the group, a woman who pressed to get around him, eyeing him strangely.

She flushed red and smiled broadly back at him, scurrying around him and meeting up with the rest of her group.

Steve took a moment to look around, to blink at the actual inside of that shop. It was crammed floor to ceiling with tiny, bright trinkets. Shirts against one wall, bright hats, shelves filled with tiny versions of Lady Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge.

New York after all. He'd already figured as much, something about the shape of the streets out there when he’d stopped to look around, but this was garish proof.

A New York he didn’t recognize, though. Some kinda Coney Island version, some strange World’s Fair display of the city he knew so well.

Not that he had time to deal with that right then. He had to shake the guys chasing him, get somewhere safe, and then he could figure out what the hell was happening.

He headed for the door, ignoring the soft giggles following him out. Nothing he hadn’t got used to after Erskine. He moved slowly, trying not to draw any eyes from outside as he approached the dusty door of the shop and looked out at the sidewalks for any trace of men in black.

Once he figured it was safe he watched the crowd for a moment and then slipped into it, keeping pace with the people closest to him. He needed to cross the street soon to keep from running into those guys on their way back, but for the moment the easiest way not to attract attention was to blend in.

Nothing he could do about his height, or his clothes, though looking around showed him that he didn’t stand out much in just that undershirt he’d woken up in. Everyone around him was in the right kinda costume to go with this strange setting.

He didn’t make it half a block before someone clapped him on the arm none-to-gently. But when he jerked away from the touch and turned to break away, fast, there were calm dark eyes looking over at him. More serious than they had been before.

Sam nodded at him to keep moving, strolling beside him like they were just two more people heading down the street. “You AWOL, Steve?”

He stiffened, strangely affronted. “A deserter? No!”

“You in trouble with the cops?”

“No!” Again Steve’s answer was instant. It wasn’t until after Sam had taken those answers in and looked away that Steve realized he actually had no real idea if they were true. Still, he stuck with honesty, at least for the moment. “I don’t think those guys were cops.”

“I don’t think so either,” Sam answered, conversational. “So you’re just in trouble, then.”

Steve looked around at the strangeness around him, the way nothing was the way it was supposed to be. “Yeah. I think I am.”

“Got anywhere to go?”

The strangeness all but closed in on him, and he swallowed back the urge to panic, to run, to not stop moving until something was familiar.

Sam just cleared his throat, looking forward again. “Okay, man. Okay.”

They didn’t speak again out on the street. Sam walked with him, at one point nudging his arm and leading him west a few blocks. Steve was too busy looking around without looking like he was looking around to pay much actual attention to where they were going. Which might have been a mistake, but…

He trusted the man. For no solid reason at all, he trusted him. Steve’s gut had got him through a lotta bad situations before, he wasn’t gonna ignore it now.

It helped that he really couldn’t see a black man working for Hydra, even in this strange slick universe he’d landed himself in.

Nobody seemed to be following them. People were moving in the same direction, but that wasn’t anything unexpected. He glanced over every now and then, peering at Sam’s casual face long enough to see the movement in his eyes that meant he was scanning for danger as much as Steve was.

Definitely military, just better at being casual about it than Steve was.

Sam nudged his arm after maybe two miles turning corners and cutting through alleys, always casual. He slowed down, and looked over at Steve for the first time in a while.

“You swear to me you’re not some criminal lunatic.”

It wasn’t a question, but Steve didn’t hesitate either way. “I’m just a soldier. I swear.”

Sam took him in, eyes wandering all over his face and even down to the set of his shoulders. He nodded after a moment, short and sharp. “You bring trouble here and we’re gonna have words, you and me.”

With that he turned and headed up a set of stairs.

Steve blinked up at the entrance to a brownstone. Simple, narrow, but a hell of a lot nicer than the ones on his block when he was growing up.

He followed after a beat.

Inside was airless and narrow, paint peeling off walls and gritting under his feet as he followed Sam up a narrow set of spongy stairs. Still a hell of a lot nicer than his old place.

Four flights they went up, then Sam hesitated again when he finally stopped outside a simple unmarked door. “This is my sister’s place. If your shit follows you here it might hurt her. If that happens…”

The threat wasn’t voiced, but the set of Sam’s jaw didn’t leave much to the imagination.

Steve frowned. “I can’t promise anything. I don’t know what the hell’s even going on.”

Surprisingly Sam relaxed a little at that, his eyes getting a little of their warmth back. “Fair enough. Least you’re honest.”

Through that door was a small, cozy apartment. Mismatched furniture in various states of worn, full bookshelves, pillows on a small couch, everything cream-colored or brown or a kind of burnt orange. This was someone’s home.

Steve breathed it in, feeling his heart starting to beat normally for the first time since he realized he recognized the game playing on that wireless. How long had it been since he’d been inside of a real home? Not barracks, not hotels, not a tent in a muddy field.

Sam was careful to lock the door, and moved across the small, comfortable front room to a narrow window that he peered out of carefully.

Steve should have joined him, looked out for followers, for men in black with heavy guns. Instead he felt a little too cotton-headed to move. He slumped back against the wooden door, telling himself he was listening for sounds of movement from outside instead of feeling as close to fainting as he’d felt in years.

That was the worst part about a sudden fight, the moments afterwards when safety made it all hit a guy like a hammer.

It was a few long, careful minutes before Sam drew back from the window, apparently satisfied they hadn’t been followed. He peered over at Steve. “If you’re gonna pass out do it on the couch. I could probably haul your big ass up off the floor but I’m not in the mood to find out.”

Steve blinked, and a scratchy laugh bubbled out of him. He was reminded suddenly of Gabe Jones, or Dum Dum giving him hell just because he thought Steve was getting a little too Captain America for his taste.

Or Bucky.

He focused on thoughts of the Commandos, pushing away from the safety of the door and ordering his feet to stay steady under him. “I need to figure some things out.”

“No shit, man. You got a phone or you need mine?”

“A phone?” Steve blinked. “What, in my pocket or something?”

Sam’s eyes swept down his body in a way that made Steve feel suddenly, strangely warm. He smirked. “Guess there’s no hiding anything in those. Alright, you can use mine, but whoever you call better be safe. No tracing your shit back to me.”

He pulled something out of the pocket of his jeans, and tossed it across the room. Steve caught it easily.

“I’m gonna make some coffee. I’m guessing this day just got a hell of a lot longer.”

Steve barely heard him, peering down at the small black box he was now holding. He frowned, looking at it front and back. There were little buttons on the side, and he pressed on one.

The whole front lit up, bright as a movie screen. It looked like a photograph. Sam and some other guy, dressed up in pale uniforms Steve didn’t recognize except that they were obviously military-issue, the land behind them beige and dusty looking.

Steve opened his mouth, question forming on his lips, until something else on the picture caught his eye.

April 17, 2012.

And 2012 wasn’t the time, since the time was blazing up above.

Steve felt the air whoosh out of him, and a moment later the couch squeaked dangerously as his entire weight dropped onto it.

He didn’t bother telling himself that it was impossible, what he was thinking now, because impossible stuff had been happening to him for a few years now. It didn’t make any damn sense, but...that was also pretty common.

He was in the plane, he was steering it into the ice, and now he was looking at April 17, 2012.

Didn’t even look like a real year.

Bucky woulda got a kick out of this, it was just the kind of thing he read dumb novels about.

Sixty-seven years.

Well. Shit.

The world outside was familiar because it was his world. It was strange because it wasn’t his world. If there was a phone number to Peggy, to the Commandos, to Phillips or Stark or the SSR...well. Wasn’t likely anybody’d be able to answer it. They were long gone. Sixty-seven years gone. Old, or dead, but gone.

He’d talked to Peggy a few hours ago. Sixty-seven years ago.

And here he was.

Nobody to call, even if this little box worked like a real phone.

“You drink coffee?”

He heard Sam’s voice, but couldn’t seem to peel his gaze from that box. Not even after the whole thing went black again.

“Hey...oh, shit.” Sam was suddenly there, moving around the couch and sitting down. “Shit, what happened? I didn’t hear you talking to anybody, what’s wrong?”

Steve pushed those buttons on the side until the picture came back, and he looked down at the date. He tilted the box towards Sam. “Is that today?” he asked, and his voice was rough and scratchy.

“Last I checked.” Sam sucked in an audible breath. “Oh, shit. You’re in worse shape than you thought, huh?”

He laughed, frail and tight. “You could say that.”

Sam’s sister was away, and he was minding her apartment. Honeymoon, he said when Steve asked, and from the sound of his voice he wasn’t all that happy about it. Maybe didn’t like the husband.

“It was just us, me and her and my younger brother, after our folks died. I get overprotective of them,” Sam admitted, though Steve didn’t manage to ask out loud.

Listening to Sam talk about it gave him something to center his mind on, though, so he paid close attention as Sam moved around the kitchen, not letting silence fall for too long at a time. He pitched his voice pretty loud, steady as it was, and Steve wondered how much of it was because of him looking like he’d seen a ghost.

Was a ghost, more like.

Nothing he needed to know was anything he could actually ask without being seen as completely nuts, so he kept quiet and listened to Sam talk and let it calm him down.

Sam moved around the place easily, like he’d been there for a while. He was cooking, and whatever it is already smelled amazing but Steve’s body couldn’t decide if it was hungry or not. (Haven’t eaten in sixty-seven fuckin' years, he tried to tell his stomach, but it didn’t seem to be swayed.)

“How you feeling over there?” Sam called out suddenly, drawing Steve’s focus once again.

“Better,” he answered, mostly honest.

“Good. Get up, move around. You need to kick your brain into gear.”

“If you’re sure, doc,” he answered without thinking, responding to that light teasing tone that reminded him so much of his team.

“Hey, don’t get smart with me. I was pararescue, I’m a damn sight closer to a doctor than you, you grunt.”

Steve chuckled and obediently pushed to his feet, stretching up on his toes and taking stock of how he felt. He hadn’t felt sick or anything, even when he first woke up. Just empty and confused. But he’d been feeling some serious fight-or-flight since then, and that could do a lot to hide general aches and pains.

Still, he wandered towards the big bookshelf on the back wall of that cozy front room and measured his movements carefully, trying to diagnose if anything was really wrong. Didn’t seem believable that a body could weather sixty-seven years without so much as a headache. But maybe the serum was more potent than even Doctor Erskine had realized.

Books hadn’t seemed to change much, at least. Language still looked the same. He had to take his luck where he could get it.

He grabbed a shiny fat paperback and flipped through it idly. Glossy and neat and clean looking, like everything else he’d seen since he woke up.

Sam’s sister had a lot of books. Maybe that was normal these days, to have entire shelves crammed full like a library instead of the handful you could afford sitting in a dusty pile waiting to get read and then traded for something new. That was a change he could get behind.

He wasn’t sure how rich Sam’s family was, but the small apartment was warm, comfortable. Plenty of food in the kitchen. And that coffee Sam made...damn.

He could maybe adjust to a glittering new world of books and good coffee, he figured. Course he also figured he was grabbing at whatever he could find that would keep him from curling up in a ball and crying for his ma like when he was ten years old and sick and scared.

“Hey. Word to the wise?”

Sam’s voice was suddenly close. Steve looked over, saw that calm gaze and gap-toothed smile, and he turned to face him without thought.

Sam held out a glass, complete with a couple of inches of less-than-innocent-looking honey-brown liquid and a couple of ice cubes. He nodded down at the book. “Whatever trash my sister reads will just clog up your brain more.”

“I’m not sure that’s possible,” Steve admitted. He shut the book and took the glass with a nod of thanks. Wouldn’t have any effect, unless that had changed, but he took the gesture for what it was.

Sam headed back to the kitchen. “Well, you remember being in service, you know your name. Could definitely be worse.”

When Steve turned to put the book back he scanned over the other shelves curiously. “Think that’s enough? Maybe someone out there’s looking for Army Steve.”

Sam laughed.

Steve glanced over, a little surprised at the sound, a little warmed. It hadn’t been a completely facetious question: he wasn’t sure how the world worked anymore.

“Hey, man. Guy like you, someone’s definitely looking.”

“Guy like me?”

“Sure. Well-fed all-American white boy? You’re the kinda guy whose missing person’s report ends up national news. Captain frigging America in the flesh.”

Steve choked on his next breath, turning to Sam instantly. “Captain…?”

Sam looked over, smiling genially as he moved around the little kitchen. “Hell yeah. Makes me wonder if your momma named you Steve coincidentally, or if she knew you’d turn out to be a look-alike.” He hesitated, regarding Steve for a moment. “Don’t tell me you don’t remember Captain America.”

“Never met him,” Steve answered unsteadily.

Sam rolled his eyes. “Nah, you had a whole box of those comics when you were a kid, don’t play. Bet you watched that cartoon and everything. ‘When Captain America throws his mighty shieeeeeeld…’” He hummed a few more notes, voice rich and warm.

Steve was torn between horror and amusement and a distant kind of ‘oh God’ surrender, because of course they milked him even after his plane went down. He knew just the guys who woulda been first in line to cash in.

Sam looked over, and whatever was on Steve’s face made his own grin soften. “Okay, we’ll come back to the childhood stuff. Maybe we should focus on the things you actually do remember.” He pulled a couple of plates from a cupboard.

Steve approached after a moment, figuring he ought to pretend to remember some kinda manners. “Lemme do that.”

Sam kept the plates but nodded towards the cupboard. “Cups in there, silverware’s in the drawer, and I usually just set up on the coffee table in there. Go nuts. Where’d you serve?”

The question was slipped in so casually Steve answered it without much thought. “Europe. All over.”

“Shit, really? No playing in the sandbox for you?”

“Sandbox?”

“Afghanistan? Iraq? No desert marches or sunburns or thousand degree nights? Lucky guy.”

Steve went digging for silverware, uncertain how much he could say without making some misstep. “That where they sent you? The desert?”

“How you think I got so tan?”

Steve glanced over, and laughed at the crooked grin Sam shot him.

“That’s what it means to serve these days, heading into the sandbox. You’re lucky you got out of it. I bet Europe’s pretty damn cushy.”

Steve smiled faintly. “Walk in the park.”

“Mm. You sound like a local boy.”

“Brooklyn,” Steve agreed with his usual pride.

“Jesus Christ, you’re not helping that Captain America comparison. Tell me your last name is Rogers.”

Steve laughed, a little forced. His brain worked quick, suggesting both Barnes and Carter as possibilities before realizing he had no idea how linked Peggy and Bucky were to whatever stories still existed about him. He settled on his mother’s maiden name instead.

“Sorry to disappoint, but it’s Aherne.”

“Ah, well. But hey, there you go. Full name, Army background. We can sit down with Google tonight and work some shit out.”

“Google?”

“You’d be surprised what kind of stuff you can dig up.” Sam’s expression changed after a moment, though, before Steve could wonder if digging things up with a google was good or bad. “Though, on second thought.”

“What?”

He hesitated, turning from the stove with plates in hand. He came out to join Steve by the couch, setting the plates down on the coffee table. “Those dudes who came after you are serious business. If they’re not our government they’re...probably someone’s government. Maybe an online search isn’t the smartest thing right now. Could be people tracking those kinda things.”

Steve had nothing to add to that, no context that made it clear enough to respond to. That the goons in black were military-grade was no doubt. That they came charging after him in the middle of a busy Manhattan street meant they didn’t fear arrest or attention, which was even worse.

There was too much he was missing, though. For him computers were those giant wall-sized contraptions with the blinking lights and the wires and cords and things that Howard Stark was so proud of.

Still, he knew a little something about staying low and avoiding enemy eyes. Enough to agree that anything that Sam thought to fear was best left alone. “You're probably right.”

Sam sat down, apprehension in his face. A moment later he blinked over at Steve. “Yeah? You don't think I’m being paranoid?”

Steve huffed a laugh. “If you are I think it’s understandable. Goons with guns inspire paranoia.”

“That’s a good point.” The clouds cleared from Sam’s eyes, and he gestured at the table. “Eat up, man. I haven’t cooked a full meal in a long time, you damn well better savor the honor.”

Steve grinned, taking his plate and diving in.

Good coffee, lots of books, and food that had actual - if slightly overwhelming at first - flavor to it. This absurd HG Wellsian world around him wasn’t entirely bad.

That wasn’t even mentioning the television, which was more like a movie screen hanging big and flat on the wall. Steve had noticed it, took it for some kinda modern glossy reflective art, until Sam turned in on about halfway through the meal.

They watched a couple of news programs, but there was no story about anything weird happening in Times Square earlier that day. Sam didn’t seem too surprised, letting it go with a simple muttered ‘only in New York’ that didn’t seem entirely fond.

Steve paid him as much attention as he paid the television, which was saying something. Everything on the TV was clear and sharp, more colorful than the actual world around him, or so it seemed. He learned a little bit just by watching everything: the world was a hell of a lot less formal than it used to be. Everyone going around in t-shirts and talking like soldiers only got away with talking in the trenches where Steve was from.

He didn’t mind it. He’d learned almost everything he knew about life beyond sickness and poverty when he was in those trenches, so he prefered the casual feeling of it to whatever alternatives he might’ve dreamed up.

Watching the news, stories about the world and politicians and movie stars and criminals...it was like watching a film. It didn’t feel real to him in any way he could grasp. He tried to absorb what he could, though it felt like watching footage of Nazi soldiers in preparation for pulling some undercover mission. It felt like theater.

Sam, though. Sam felt very real, and Steve couldn’t stop his focus from drifting over to him more often than it should have.

As little as Steve understood about anything since the moment he’d woken up, he had the unshakeable feeling that running into Sam had saved him. He had no right to be where he was, sitting on the man’s couch and eating his food, being able to answer no questions. Sam shoulda let him run off when those goons came after him, and never bothered with him again. But there he was. A bit of good luck in the midst of this storm.

Sam was calm, cheerful. Pleasant. He cooked a swell piece of fish, no doubt about that.

But there was something else about him. The soldier in him, maybe. Not just because he ragged on Steve the same kinda way his team did. He held himself like a soldier. Had from the start, when he’d been so calm and matter-of-fact about getting Steve out of the road and trying to get him to talk some sense.

It was in his eyes that he’d seen war. Steve knew the look, though he couldn’t have described it if he’d wanted to. He only knew he never saw it in Brooklyn growing up, but it was everywhere once he was in a real uniform.

Sam had a light in him, under all the calm. A fire. The kind of guy who’d pulled through a firefight and was always ready for the next one.

He was striking. High carved-out cheekbones and those big expressive brown eyes, rich dark skin and a little growth of darker beard on his jaw. If they’d met any other time, blowing off steam at some pub in London or Paris, Steve woulda made the kind of eyes at Sam that woulda had Bucky punching him for being too obvious.

Still, it wasn’t warm eyes or a full mouth that had Steve sitting completely relaxed on the man’s couch an hour after figuring out that everything he knew and fought for was just gone. It was the fact that Steve trusted him. Probably woulda gone ahead and told him his real name if he didn’t think Sam would look at him like he was completely nuts.

Maybe there was some shock involved in that, too. Probably. Some part of him wanted to curl up and shut his eyes and not move until everything got back to how it was supposed to be, and Steve couldn’t help but think that shoulda been a louder part.

Still, a few hours ago he’d been a soldier in the middle of a war, and a soldier went on. No matter how cock-eyed the world got.

So maybe it wasn’t actually all that strange that he was as calm as he was. He knew how to keep going no matter what the fight was, and there was a good soldier sitting there with him to watch his back. That was all he’d ever needed.

“We’ll see if a night of sleep does any good. If not, you should come with me tomorrow and we’ll see if the VA’s got any resources we can use.”

Steve gave that suggestion the same noncommittal reply he’d given to most of the things Sam said that he figured he'd already know about if he was anyone other than a guy from 1945. Luckily he figured the memory loss angle could account for most of his lack of opinions.

The apartment was a one bedroom, and the bedroom wasn’t much bigger than the bed that was in it. Sam gestured to it grandly as Steve followed him through the door.

“You get invalid privileges tonight, but don’t get comfortable with that.”

“I’m not an in...wait, what kinda privileges?”

Sam laughed. “Man after my own heart. You take the bed, I’ll sleep on the couch. For tonight, I say again. Tomorrow we’ll see how I’m feeling.”

“Oh, Sam, no.” Steve eyed the bed uncertainly. It was big, plush-looking like in a nice hotel, but there wasn’t much tempting about it. “I’m not putting a guy out of his own bed.”

“It’s my sister’s bed, so I’ve got you on a technicality. Go on, man.” He smiled easily and grabbed one of the pillows off the bed. “Let me stand guard out there.”

“I appreciate it, really, but...”

“Steve.” Sam approached, moving around the bed with pillow held at his stomach. His eyes were as calm as ever, if a little more serious suddenly. “You need a good night’s sleep. You’re obviously suffering from some damn thing, even if neither of us know what it is exactly. I need both hands to count the number of times you’ve looked ready to pass out since I dragged your ass out of that street. Take the bed. Call it an order.”

“You think you outrank me?”

Sam’s grin returned. “My apartment, my ranks.”

“Maybe we should call your sister, see if she agrees.” Steve sat on the edge of the bed, though, a sign of surrender. “Thanks.”

“I’ve been there, brother.” Sam’s smile went lopsided. “I’m still there, more than I wanna admit.”

Steve didn’t question it, didn’t bother to think that his ‘there’ was likely world’s different from most people’s. The specifics of his situation were gonna make themselves unignorable soon enough, so for the moment he was just glad to find some kind of understanding.

“Get some rest, Steve.” Sam gave him one last smile, and headed out the door.

Steve gave it a shot. He really did. He stripped down to the familiar Army-green drawers he’d been dressed in, he crawled into that plush bed under an obscenely soft and thick comforter, and he tried.

And an hour into 'sleep' he was too busy thinking about those sixty-seven years he’d missed, staring up at the ceiling, wide awake. He’d been looking at it like, blink, suddenly 2012. But maybe he hadn’t traveled years in the blink of an eye. Maybe he’d been there all along, and now his body had years of sleep stored up so wouldn’t let him have any more now.

He ran through names, listing them once and then again and then again, like his own kind of funeral dirge. Dugan, Jones, Morita. Falsworth, Dernier. Phillips, Stark.

Carter.

Barnes.

Everyone he had. Every ally, every friend, every familiar face. Odds were they’d be dead now. If any of them were still alive they’d be...in their nineties. Hell. Old, with entire lives lived without him.

Unsurprisingly, it was Peggy that hurt the most. Peggy, whose voice was still in his ear when he woke up and had it replaced by a baseball game on a wireless. Peggy, who wanted to go dancing. Who hadn’t been his first kiss, but the one that meant most.

He was lucky, in a horrible way. Lucky that Buck had died a few days ago, and he’d been able to adjust to that loss before he hit the ice. Not that he’d adjusted all that well, but still. The loss of Bucky and Peggy at once, on top of everyone else he knew…

That would’ve been too much.

Hell, maybe it was already too much. Maybe shock was holding it back, but when the reality of this whole nuts thing hit him maybe he wouldn’t be able to handle it. He didn’t know how much loss a guy was supposed to be able to handle, but he was pretty sure the serum hadn’t given him a greater capacity for it than everyone else had.

In the morning when he didn’t have any answers to give Sam, he figured he’d lose this, too, the generosity and care he had lucked into finding. The calm eyes and big smiles, the trust. The understanding that Steve didn’t doubt for a second.

Steve would tell him the truth before he let that happen. Even if Sam thought he was nuts, even if he had no way to prove it. At least he’d pay him back with honesty, since that’s all he had to offer.

“Yeah, I thought so.”

The sudden voice made him flinch, sent him sitting straight up, unnerved to be caught off guard.

Sam wasn’t much more than a darker shadow in the black. “Sorry,” he said mildly. “Figured you’d be tossing and turning. Come on out if you want, I’ve got coffee on.”

Steve didn’t have to take time to consider the offer. He shoved the soft cloud of a cover off of him and pushed to his feet.

“Coffee seems pretty final,” he called out into the darkness as he pulled his t-shirt back on and headed for the bedroom door. “I know why I’m not sleeping, but what’s your excuse?”

It was brighter in the front of the apartment, but not by much. There was a little bulb burning in the kitchen, plugged right into the wall instead of hanging overhead. The curtains were open, letting in lamplight from outside. It was more than enough to see by, at least.

“Don’t have one. I just know I’d rather pretend I’m awake on purpose if I’m gonna be awake anyway.”

“You taking standing guard that seriously?” Steve kept the humor mild in his voice, appreciating the sentiment too much to really joke about it.

“I should say yes and pretend to be more noble than I am. But nah, this is just how it is. Me and sleep haven’t been friends in a while.” Sam came from the kitchen holding two steaming cups. He held one out to Steve. “Same for you?”

Steve shrugged, taking the coffee and breathing it in deep. It even smelled better than the stuff he was used to. “Opposite, I think.”

“How’s that?”

He followed Sam to the couch, and they dropped on it together, sharing faint grins when the poor thing groaned under their combined weight.

“All I know is I woke up from a pretty sound sleep today, and…” He shrugged. “Everything was gone. Except the guys with the guns. Feels like I slept hard for a long time, but. Whatever I had before today...it’s gone.”

Sam whistled lowly, but nodded. “That seems like a pretty valid reason not to want to sleep again.”

“Yeah.” Steve studied the cup, watching the steam travel up through the gashes of blue-tinged lamplight from outside until it vanished up into the darkness. “I don’t have much left, but I want to hang on to it. Even if it’s just knowing I’m Army Steve.”

Sam huffed a laugh. He twisted against the arm of the couch, drawing his legs up on the cushions and regarding Steve. “I told you I wasn’t gonna leave you like this. I’ll be here to remind you you’re Army Steve if you lose it overnight.”

Steve smiled over the rim of his cup. “Thanks. I can’t figure this is what you wanted to do with your night.”

Sam gave another soft huff of a laugh, but it was a tighter sound. “Trust me, this is an improvement.”

Steve looked over, studying him. In the shadowed light the cut of his cheekbones were even more prominent, and the darkness brought out the deep shadows under those steady eyes. He was surprised he didn’t notice it before, but then maybe he needed to look to Sam for his calm and his strength and couldn’t handle seeing the rest.

Handling things seemed easier in the hushed dark of a sleepless night, though. “How long you been out?” he asked on a hunch.

Sam’s mouth thinned for a moment, like he knew he’d been found out. “Not long enough. Of course to hear my sister talk it's been forever. I should be over it by now, being back in the world.”

“You get hurt over there?”

“No.”

Steve waited, taking a sip of that glorious coffee.

Sam sighed. “My wingman got killed, right in front of me. Would’ve been better if I had been hurt. They could’ve shot me down with the same RPGs. Taken my arm, or left me with scars. Something. At least then people wouldn’t expect me to be back to normal so soon.”

It was a pull in his chest, those words. That bitterness leaking through Sam’s voice. If Steve gave himself a moment, shut his eyes, focused, he would have seen Bucky falling. Days ago, no matter what the calendar said. It was just days ago.

“Honestly, I haven’t been doing too great. But...fuck it, Steve. I’m still here. You’re still here too, even if you’re missing some stuff upstairs. Fuck it.”

“Fuck it,” Steve repeated with a quiet kind of vehemence, lofting his cup in salute.

Sam went into the bedroom when his coffee was done. He came out dragging that fluffy cover and the other pillow with him. “At home I sleep on the floor more often than not. Not enough room to do it in there, though.” He glanced around, frowning at the couch and coffee table taking up the middle of the floor.

Steve stood up silently and grabbed the table on either side, hefting it up easily and taking it over against the wall.

“Show off.” Sam moved in without missing a beat, though, spreading the comforter down on the carpet.

Steve grabbed the second pillow from the couch and tossed it down with Sam’s. “The coffee’s making this whole set-up seem pretty optimistic.”

“Ever hear of decaf?”

“Might’ve been one of the horror stories the guys traded at night around a fire.”

Sam laughed. “Well, we’ll give this a shot, and if all else fails we’ll be front row for whatever movie I can find at oh dark thirty.”

“Deal.”

They dropped down on top of the cover, side by side in the darkness. And yeah, okay, without the plush strangeness of the mattress in the bedroom this already felt a little better. With Sam breathing right beside him it felt kinda like half the team cramming into one hotel room in some little overburdened French town on a weekend leave. There’d be less snoring, but he was gonna take that as a bonus.

Didn’t mean sleep was gonna come any easier, though. Steve sighed a little and shifted to get comfortable, but his eyes refused to close longer than a blink.

“What was his name?” he asked finally, giving in.

There was a pause, just a beat.

“Riley.” Sam’s voice felt hushed through the darkness. “Angel-faced corn-fed white boy. You might’ve reminded me of him, if he ate his spinach growing up and you were anything like as innocent as you look.”

Steve laughed. “You saying I’m not innocent?”

“Please. You got too much devil in your eyes. I bet you put on a good act when you want, though. Nah, Riley was good. Kinda guy you don’t think you’re gonna meet in the service. Profanity would turn that boy red. Not even the hard stuff, just a ‘fuck’ here and there. Get him in the air, though, and he was as deadly as anybody else.”

“Sounds like you two were close.”

“Took us a few weeks, but we got there. What we did...wasn’t anybody else to rely on when things went south, just each other. You get close fast that way.”

“Yeah.”

Sam shifted at his side. “Or, wait, are you asking if we were close close?”

Steve blinked, feeling his face heat. He hadn't meant that at all, but now that it was out there damned if he didn't want to know. “Oh. Uh. Well, I wouldn’t have just come out and asked something like that.”

“Lotta people do. We weren’t, for the record. He had a fiance, little corn-fed Iowa blonde just like him. I used to joke that their kids were gonna be see-through.”

Steve rolled on his side. Sam was clear in the glow of light through the darkness. He was staring at the ceiling, hands folded under his head. Eyes wide open and bright.

He didn’t move for a few seconds, but shifted his eyes to Steve and then back up again, maybe just to make it clear he knew he was being watched. “What about you?”

Steve punched a little at the pillow under his head. Felt like a big puff ball. “What about me?”

“Who’d you lose? And don’t deny it, it was all over your face earlier.”

Steve sighed. He didn’t think he would have denied it, though he had to be careful what he talked about. Or did he? It was starting to feel less important. “My best friend. We grew up together, we met up again in Italy, and I was there when he…”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah. Feels like…” He swallowed. “Could’ve happened hours ago for all I’ve dealt with it.”

Sam made a sympathetic sound, but didn’t offer any advice or admonishment, which Steve appreciated.

He looked over, mouth twitching upward. “Were you close?” he asked.

Steve snorted back a laugh. “Nah.” And maybe it was Sam’s casually curious face, or the slide of a joke in his voice. Or the anonymity of not being Steve Rogers, or the darkness. Whatever it was, he heard himself going on. “Not for lack of trying on my part, though.”

To his relief, Sam just chuckled. No surprise in his face, no nothing. He rolled on his side, tucking his arm under his head to pillow himself. “You don’t look like the kind of guy who gets turned down a lot.”

Steve grinned, feeling his face warming all over again. “He…” He debated for a moment about secrecy versus honesty, and split the difference. “James. James liked to sleep around, have his fun. He knew it wouldn’t have been like that with me.”

“You the clingy type?”

He rolled his eyes, but god, was it freeing to even talk about it to someone. “Not because of me, because of us. Too much history there, too much…” He lifted a hand and flopped it in a careless gesture. “Too much. Nothing wasn’t complicated with us.”

“Sounds kinda nice, actually.”

“Yeah.”

And losing it was like having a lung taken out. Made it hard to catch his breath when he thought about it. He hadn’t had anytime to settle into the idea, to mourn the loss.

Steve fell back on his back, wide awake and feeling his heart beating faster as he thought about the life he might never get back. It was just as well that he was some kinda magical time traveler now, because whatever life he would’ve had back in his own time, the rest of the war, home to Brooklyn...it would have been unthinkable without Buck. He would’ve been lost, in a very different way than he was lost right now.

Maybe there was a way home, maybe whoever did this to him could undo it. Grief or not, that was what he wanted, right? Everything else he knew and loved was back in 1945. Peggy, the Commandos. His whole purpose. But.

Going back would be torture. Staying where he was would be torture.

“I’ve got a house.”

He blinked hot-feeling eyes and stayed quiet, listening.

“In Harlem. Not that far from here, really. Belonged to our folks free and clear when they died, which is what saved our asses. I worked to pay taxes on it even before I enlisted, sent money home to make sure it got kept up. Hell, it’s half the reason I went into the service, knowing it was a steady paycheck they couldn’t fire me from unless I really fucked up. That house was everything. It kept my brother and sister with me, kept us safe. Let us hang onto our folks, in a way.”

Steve dropped his head to the side, watching Sam.

“It’s trashed now. A few months I’ve been home staying there, and. I’ve destroyed it. Trash everywhere, heat’s been turned off for a few weeks. Phone’s dead. Got this tiny little front yard, patch of grass but my dad would find a way to spend hours out there on nice afternoons. It’s dead now, overgrown where it’s not brown. I don’t know...I can’t live anymore. I forgot how to live. Been weeks I don’t leave, don’t talk to anyone. Days I don’t eat, don’t get out of bed. I don’t remember how I used to breathe , sometimes, and I don’t even remember why I should bother trying to remember.”

He sucked in a breath, let it out in a hiss. His gaze was hovering somewhere around Steve’s throat. “My sister paid a visit last week, unexpected. Broke down crying. Asked me to come mind her place while she was gone. It’ll be less than a week. She’s got no pets, secure building. Not even a fucking fern to water. I think she just wants me to…” His arm lifted, waved around them idly. “To remember what it’s like not to fester. And so far it's been...better. At least I'm picking up after myself. But I don’t know if it’ll do much good in the end. And it pisses me off she’s so scared for me and I can’t get my act together for her.”

Steve was shocked, though he hopefully didn’t show it. From the moment he locked eyes with the guy Sam had seemed like the single steadiest person he could have ever hoped to meet. Didn’t hesitate, didn’t panic, didn’t even ask many questions. Just saw Steve needed help and helped him.

Sam’s eyes met his after a short silence. He smiled faintly. “So...I know. I mean I see that look in your eyes, like you lost everything that matters, and I get it. I’ve still got a house, a family, but I feel like it’s all gone, and I just haven’t caught up to that yet. Or it’s me that’s gone, and until I cut them loose for good I’m gonna be this anchor dragging them down with me.”

Steve reached out, unable to really help himself. He rested his hand over Sam’s, where it was toying idly with the cover underneath them. He squeezed lightly, carefully.

It felt wrong to him. Really wrong. Familiar, like if Steve had survived Schmidt and that plane, his future would’ve been an awful lot like what Sam was talking about. But wrong. Wrong for Sam, who served his country to help his family, and lost so much because of it. Who still cared enough to pull a half-crazed stranger out of the street and into this apartment, offering help without asking a thing.

He deserved better. Steve didn’t know a damn thing about the world anymore, but he knew that.

Sam dragged in a ragged breath and let it out, blinking away brightness from his eyes. “Got a guy in my group lost both legs to an IED and he’s handling his shit ten times better than I am. How fucked up is that?”

“Your group?” God, Steve’s voice was just as ragged. He kept his hand where it was, feeling like it would hurt him physically to have to move it.

“At the VA. I’ve been going to therapy for a while, when I can drag my ass out of bed to go. Talk to this counselor, and then they have these group meetings. It’s helping. I think it’s helping. Look at today. I showered, I left the apartment. Snatched up a wanted man right off the street and cooked him dinner. Even laughed a few times.”  

“Miracle,” Steve agreed quietly. If Sam hadn’t been there, where would he be spending the night? In a cell? In a gutter somewhere? A hospital, maybe, if he’d stayed out in the street the way he was. Miracles for both of them.

And that fit. If Sam deserved better, maybe Steve did, too. Whatever this whole thing was - some magic trick, a trip through time itself, a fever dream as he froze to death slowly - he’d earned better. Steve Rogers was never perfect but he was good. Decent. He served. His last conscious action before that day was sacrificing his life so that others would live.

He deserved better than this confusion, this bright and nonsensical world. This sense of loss, deeper every minute. He deserved…

Sam lifted up on his elbow suddenly. He regarded Steve, his eyes serious, less calm than they’d been earlier but without the upset that came from talking about how things were going for him. His gaze traveled Steve’s face, looking for something.

And then he leaned over and kissed him.

Surprise made Steve twitch a little, but not enough to put air between them. Sam’s mouth was warm, lips full and soft. It was...just a touch, really, just the brush of that warm softness against Steve’s mouth, Sam’s breath a warm puff against his cheek.

Then he drew back.

Steve reached up fast, sealing his hand at the back of Sam’s neck before he could go too far. He swallowed, licked his lips to prolong the thrill of contact. Felt heat sliding down his spine when he saw how Sam’s eyes went to his mouth and stayed there, locked.

Steve had no words, but Sam didn’t seem to need them. He shifted in closer until his body pressed warm and solid along Steve’s. And he leaned in again.

Steve hummed approval, hand staying firm around Sam’s neck as he lifted up to meet him. He tried to keep things easy, to let whatever was happening here happen slowly, but the slide of Sam’s mouth against his stoked something inside of him. Something other than the hot burn of panic and the cold smolder of loss he’d been feeling all day.

Maybe this really was a fever dream. Maybe both of them were having it at once. Maybe they both earned it, needed it, and so it was being granted to them. This strange future world with its glittering brightness...maybe this was what it was all for.

Maybe he needed to stop thinking so much.

He brought his other hand up, stroked up the line of Sam’s side. Sam made a faint sound against his mouth, shifting enough to press himself down on Steve, who was more than happy to take the weight. They kissed - still slow, hot as it burned - until their breath was coming in quick gasps and Steve’s mouth felt swollen and sensitive.

He slid his hands, his palms, the pads of his fingers, over Sam’s arms and down his back and down the mouth-watering curve of his ass, then did it all again. It felt like something he’d never had before, like luxury, pure indulgence, and he wanted all that he could get. Sam was strong and firm all over, a little softer than Steve from the past weeks of inactivity. Perfect. He fit into Steve’s hands like he’d been made for it, or that serum had shaped Steve special just for this.  

He was hard, had been hard since maybe the third or fourth kiss. Ached with it, but it only became a pressing concern when Sam stroked a hand down his stomach and then further, until his knuckles brushed against the tent of Steve’s drawers.

Steve hissed out a breath, hips arching upwards without his permission.

Sam broke away from him, giving him a chance to catch his breath. When Steve pried his eyes open his vision was full of Sam, those amazing near-black eyes, the curve of a faint smile on his face. He took Steve in, watching his reaction like he was memorizing it. His hand grazed down Steve’s erection again, and his eyes glowed as he watched Steve flush and push up against the touch.

Steve slid his hand behind Sam’s neck again, urging him back down. Sam’s smile twitched wider, but he obeyed the urging. His kisses went a little slower, lazier, like they suddenly had all the time in the world now that they’d actually made a start of it.

Steve wasn’t about to criticize. He felt light-headed already, was more than happy to let his hands roam Sam’s body, kiss that amazing plush mouth. It felt surreal enough, like this had to be some kinda dream to be suddenly feeling this good in the middle of so much bad.

“Jesus.” Sam drew back, drawing in air deeply. He held himself up on one arm, eyes black and intense as he looked down at Steve. “You know what you’re doing here, right?”

Steve was already heated and flushed, so at least that didn’t show up more. “What do you--”

“You’re fresh out of some kind of panic attack or dissociation a few hours ago. Your brain’s maybe not working like it should.”

Oh. Steve nodded fast, a little surprised, and strangely pleased, that Sam had enough brainpower to think about that right then. Steve sure as hell didn’t. “You feel good,” he said, voice gravel. “I want this.”

Sam groaned and wriggled over a little, settling down between Steve’s legs. He moved, rolled his hips, something that had the hard heat of his own erection driving down against Steve’s.

Steve bit back a yelp, head falling back against the pillow as a pulse of pure pleasure shot through him like electrical shock. He scrambled to grab onto Sam, gripping his shirt with his fists and hauling him down.

“More,” he growled against Sam’s mouth.

Sam didn’t seem inclined to argue. He kissed him deep and kept his hips moving in slow, grinding circles. Steve figured out quick how to match him, meet him, move against him in a way that made him see stars against the backs of his eyelids. He couldn’t stop from moving, from arching up faster and harder and it was like he hadn’t felt anything good in ages, desperate as he was to keep it going.

His body let him down, though, in the best possible way. His restless hands found the mouth-watering curve of Sam’s ass, he pulled them tight together, and this reckless damp heat building up inside of him exploded outward.

He groaned, breaking off from Sam’s mouth and pushing up into him even as he came. His whole body shuddered with it, his breath coming out in soft hitched groans.

Before he let the languor of it seep into his bones and shut him down, the way it always did when he got himself off, he pried his eyes open. Sam was still braced on top of him, his cock in his hand through a slit in his drawers.

Steve watched, mind completely incapable of functioning at the sight of Sam stroking himself. By the time he realized he wanted that to be his hand wrapped around Sam’s cock and making him gasp, Sam was already spilling out between them.

Sam slumped down on top of him, breath coming out in pants. “Fuck.”

Steve agreed.

He slept hard. If his body had been around the last sixty-seven years and not just magically transported to that place he woke up in, he must’ve been sleeping like that. Nothing existed, just gone one minute and waking up the next, heavy from a damn good rest.

He’d forgotten to be scared of it. Was too distracted by Sam and the heat between them and the singing his own body was doing. But he didn’t have time to remember to get scared once his eyes opened, because there was Sam’s back, the sound of his heavy, deep breathing. The floor of that apartment, sun high and streaming in bright through the windows.

Nothing lost. Nothing that hadn’t already been lost, anyway.

He had to talk to Sam, had to tell him the full truth about who he was. Sam would probably still look at him like he was crazy, but...he’d give him a chance. Steve couldn’t see anyone feeling what they felt last night and not offering at least a few chances in honor of those feelings.

For the moment, though, he was content to lay there, let himself come awake slowly and peacefully. Taking in the lines of Sam’s back - bare, since he’d stripped off his t-shirt to clean them up last night, and hadn’t that been a sight - the rich darkness of his skin. He seemed to glow in the sunshine.

Or maybe Steve was being fanciful.

He wanted to draw him: the smooth long lines of his spine, the curve of his shoulder, the arc of his neck. The gleam of his eyes, the curve of his smile. That concern that had furrowed his brow the first time Steve laid eyes on him.

He held his breath unconsciously when Sam started to stir, when his breathing lost its rhythm and he started to shift around. He wanted to reach out, fit his palm around the back of his shoulder, something, but he stayed still.

Sam dropped down on his back with a half-awake murmur of sound. After a minute his head dropped to the side, and he peered at Steve. A new smile, sleepy and crooked, tugged at his mouth.

“How you feeling?”

Steve smiled back, feeling a little bashful. “Good. You?”

“Good, yeah.”

He had to fight the urge to beam like a child. Luckily his thoughts didn’t need any convincing to swing down a darker path and dampen his mood. He sighed, resisting the desire to bury his face in the pillow like a kid hiding from the world.

“There’s a whole lotta stuff I’ve got to deal with today, I figure. I just...don’t want to start yet.”

“You need an excuse to procrastinate?” Sam grinned, rolling on his side and then over again until he was basically half-flopped on top of Steve. “There. I’m taking a nap, be a good pillow and don’t move.”

He laughed, more breath than sound, and slipped his arm around Sam, fingertips slowly exploring the planes of that well-muscled back he’d been admiring a minute ago.

He just wanted things to be slow a little while longer. He still half-expected to have a gun slapped into his hand and a mission to take him back into the war. A week ago he watched his best friend die. Two days ago he was steering himself down to his own death. Yesterday he was traveling in time. Who knew what the hell was gonna happen today. It was a lot, fast.

This, whatever this was, this floor and this apartment, was the kind of escape he never would’ve hoped for. A chance to catch his breath.

And what Sam was for him...he didn’t have the words to do it justice.

He let his exploring hand drift down, fingers toying over the bunched-up waist of Sam’s drawers and then sliding down to his ass.

“You make one distracting-ass pillow, Steve,” Sam murmured against his chest.

“You want me to stop?” Steve asked mildly, filling his palm with that thick curve of muscle. He’d never noticed himself having a special affinity for asses before, but jesus.

“Did I say that?” Sam’s head lifted, and he sent a raised eyebrow up to Steve. “Just don’t make any promises you’re too tired deliver on.”

Steve swallowed, mouth suddenly dry. His hand shifted, his finger stroking over Sam’s underwear right along the seam of his ass. “I got more than enough energy to deliver whatever you want me to,” he said, his voice dipping low, thick with promise.

Sam’s eyes darkened, and his leg shifted upward to open himself up a little more. “Think you can lose the clothes this time?”

For that, the day and whatever it had in store for him could definitely wait.

He knew all the mechanics for this - Morita spoke two languages fluently, English and Inappropriate Oversharing - but Sam must’ve picked up on his lack of experience. He was patient, slow, told Steve just where to touch him and how.

He had rubbers and a bottle of slick stuff ten times better than the vaseline soldiers used, already laying there on the floor near their makeshift bed. Told Steve he grabbed it on a bathroom run while Steve was sleeping.

“The VA’s always talking about living in hope, so look at me,” he’d said with a grin, “learning a lesson.”

Opening him up was something magical. Sam stayed draped over him, so Steve could feel every shudder, every twitch of his cock, every caught breath. Sam pressed hot-feeling kisses randomly over his chest as he arched back into Steve’s fingers, pulling them in deeper.

Finally he rolled off, turning his back to Steve, lifting his knee high, almost to his chest.

Steve spread him open and pushed his way in, slow and smooth, and every inch of it felt downright holy. Sam was tight around him, squeezing, holding him in and drawing him further. Steve panted for air, fisted his hand in the covers for control. He grazed his lips against the back of Sam’s neck, and couldn’t stop kissing that spot as he started to move inside him.

Sam was loud, profane, just as holy as he felt as he urged Steve faster, harder, more. His skin sparkled with sweat, making him glow even brighter in the sunlight. Steve wrapped his slicked-up hand around Sam’s cock the way he’d wanted to the night before, stroked him as he moved.

He wished he could’ve seen Sam’s face when he came, but he settled on hearing it in his suddenly sharper cries, and feeling it pulsing wet-hot against his fingers. Steve was quick to follow him, arm looped around Sam’s stomach, open mouth pressed to the back of his neck as he squeezed his eyes shut and spilled into Sam’s body.

And then he wasn’t much use to anyone. Second time in a few hours he passed out hard without remembering to be scared to fall asleep.

Sam left for his VA meeting with a smirk at Steve, still splayed out on the rumpled covers on the floor. “Might be a few hours, I gotta see this therapist today after group. I was gonna see if you wanted to come with, but.”

“Think modern medicine can grow my bones back for me in time to make it over there?”

Sam gave a low and deservedly self-satisfied laugh, and was out the door before Steve could think to ask him for another kiss. Or twenty.

He picked himself up after a while, figured out the shower after a few minutes trial and error, and soaked under a hot spray long enough to put his newly regrown bones back at risk.

And after enjoying that last sign that the future had a hell of a lot going for it, his mood started to sink again. Without Sam there it was too easy to start thinking, to remember the world outside and the life he had to...catch up on, or start over from scratch, or whatever he was gonna do.

He didn’t exist here, and with the everyday technology being what it was he suspected that things like lying on government documents were harder to do than they used to be.

Maybe Sam would have some ideas about how to manage it. Steve would have to tell him the whole truth first, of course. But he’d made up his mind to do that last night, and hadn’t changed it.

Just...got distracted.

He straightened up a bit as he reflected on things. Wasn’t much thinking to do, really: he had no answers at all, and didn’t know where to even start looking for them. That was something else Sam could help with, he figured. Meantime Steve gathered up the soiled covers and headed for the bathroom to wash them in that huge tub, before rethinking it and leaving them in a pile by the bathroom door. Maybe they did things different now.

The icebox had some leftovers from dinner, and he ate it right out of the little lidded dish. Cold it was still a damn sight better than anything he ate in the last few months. He debated looking for something he could cook later on to return the favor - he wasn’t a slouch on a stove in his own time, though the ingredients lists were much, much simpler. But he abandoned the idea as something else he should probably work out with Sam first.

And that basically left him entirely useless. Which did nothing to improve his mood.

When the knock on the door came after Sam was away a while, Steve headed over assuming it was him. But his brain kicked in before he got there, luckily, and reminded him Sam wouldn’t knock on his own door.

Maybe a neighbor, maybe something completely harmless. But nothing Steve should answer. Sam was gone, his place should be empty, so empty it would be.

Until after the second set of knocks, when a voice called out through the door.

“Captain Rogers, I don’t expect you want me to knock this door down, so just open it.”

For a moment nerves gripped him. Only for a moment, and then his spine stiffened, and he set his jaw.

Good. This was answers, and he was damn sure owed a few.

He marched to the door and threw it open, ready to take on whatever men in black he found waiting.

There was just one man standing there. Tall as Steve, with a fierce scowl and one eye covered with a black patch. No weapons in sight, no lackeys in the hall around him. And he scowled at Steve in a way that reminded him very much of Colonel Phillips in mid-bluster.

The man pushed past him, taking advantage of his hesitation, and marched into the apartment. “Awake for less than twenty-four hours, and you’ve already been the single biggest pain in my ass this week.”

“Excuse me?”

“Do you know how much manpower I’ve had to direct to finding you? Do you know how it feels to dig up a guy who’s been ‘dead’ since ‘45, find the specialists who can revive him with no physical damage, and then lose him?”

Steve shut the door slowly, facing the intruder. “Who are you?”

The man faced him, scowl still in place. But his one visible eye scanned Steve carefully, and the expression softened a little. “Take a ride with me, Captain. I’ll give you more answers than you know what to do with.”

This man didn’t scream trustworthy the way Sam did, but Steve had a pretty decent gut for sniffing out bad intentions, and he wasn’t picking anything up here.

Besides, he needed answers, and here they were. At the least this man knew who he was and how he got here. He needed to know what this guy knew, and if that meant going with him...he’d done stupider things for less.

Still, he had a feeling that those answers he needed were gonna come with some serious complications, and as he went to the bedroom to grab his shoes he had another very real feeling that once he left he wasn’t gonna see this place again for a while.

***

Two Years Later.

***

Running wasn’t something Sam did for a workout. The sweat was great, kept him trim, all well and good, but physical health was just a bonus. He ran because routine had kept him going when he needed it most, and because nothing cleared his head better.

He ran the Mall at sunrise because he enjoyed the quiet of the first loop around, and then enjoyed the slowly gathering people on the second. Tourists mostly, but he hadn’t lived in DC long enough to start hating the sight of them.

Besides, it was nice watching the different kinds of people, Americans and otherwise, who came to a spot like DC just to celebrate the government. Which, because no one in their right mind celebrated a government, meant they were really celebrating the country. And that was good to see for a guy who got his meager pittance of a salary helping men and women and otherwise who had been cracked or broken in service to this country.

It was innocent. The Mall, the tourists, the running. A clear bright spot of innocence to get his motivation fired up to tackle the rest of his grimy day in this grimy-ass city.

Occasionally he ran into other people running. Usually they didn’t start showing up until later in the morning, and like him they were mostly casual, enjoying the scenery as much as the exercise.

So when he found himself being lapped by a blond blur this particular morning, he noted it with a flash of amusement. The guy was booking, running like he was being chased. Funky stance, but who was Sam to question it when the guy was out of sight almost faster than Sam could register that he’d spoken words.

There and gone, and Sam kept on trucking at his same easy speed.

Something itched at his spine, though, as he went on. Something about the dude, about the quick words Sam almost hadn’t caught. The size of him, the shape. Something.

Maybe someone he’d run into at work. That happened more times than he would have thought, as big an area as the DMV was.

But then the guy came back around.

Sam heard the almost impossibly quick slap of fast and light footsteps, and this time he paid attention.

The guy still wasn’t much better than a blur. But this time his ‘on your left’ was said with just a trace of amusement. He was enjoying lapping folks. Sam would’ve put him down as some overcompetitive jock, but he slowed himself down and watched the swing of broad shoulders, the pumping of legs under stupidly narrow hips.

And then he stopped in his tracks.

No.

Couldn’t be.

He’d considered the possibility sometimes, but usually ended up reminding himself that casually running into Steve Rogers was even less likely than the possibility that he’d simply dreamed that whole day and night two years ago and had never actually met the dude who weeks later was splashed on the cover of every newspaper, fighting aliens.

Steve Aherne, confused Army vet. Captain America after all.

To say Sam had gone through some serious stages of disbelief was understating things. But in two years those stages had resolved themselves pretty well. He figured he knew why Steve had lied about who he was, and didn’t blame him for a second. He knew why Steve was so lost, knew that whatever made him up and vanish was probably for the best. Government found him, most likely.

He’d made peace with things. Never told a damn soul about it, either. Not even his sister.

The one thing he held tightly to after Steve disappeared was the fact that helping him out, or trying to, had been the first thing in weeks that lifted him out of his depression. Between that and the help he’d been getting at the VA, he eventually figured out a solid next move for himself.

And there he was. Doing a job he loved, as gut-wrenching as it was, still healing himself in a lot of ways, but motivated, and relatively happy.

Didn’t stop his stomach from doing flips whenever he spotted the Avengers on the news, but short of sending Captain America a fan letter and asking him to please write back, he wasn’t sure how to reach a resolution for those particular feelings.

Let go of what you can’t change, deal with the rest. That was something he taught his group. Like most things he taught it was easier said than done.

Eventually Sam started walking again, needing to finish his routine, grimly amused by the idea that if that really had been Steve he might’ve just missed his one shot to ever say hey.

But no, soon enough he heard the patter of ridiculously fast footsteps. He stuck to walking pace, and let the guy get out his ever-more-amused ‘on your left’.

Then he called out, nice and easy. “Well, if it isn’t Army Steve.”

The guy was already a good fifty feet ahead when he seemed to register the words. His head snapped around, his feet near caught on each other, and he ended up having to pinwheel his arms and stagger to the side to keep from falling on his face.

Sam laughed, figuring a reaction like that at least confirmed that he wasn’t crazy. He stopped in the middle of the path, arms folding over his chest, grin stretching wider by the second.

Steve got his footing and charged back his way almost at the same dead run. His hair was shorter, Sam noted as he approached, but everything else looked exactly the same, down to the absurdly tight t-shirt.

Except he’d never had that big a grin on his face two years ago.

“Sam?” Steve’s voice was hoarse, stunned, but he didn’t slow. He practically plowed right into Sam, luckily grabbing onto him instead of going for a straight tackle.

Sam laughed again, hugging him back despite them both being sweat-drenched and ridiculous. In his head, in his heart, that hug at least settled his years-old misgivings about whether he’d even rated a place in Steve’s memory, if Steve ever thought about him too.

"Wouldn't have taken you for a hugger," he said through his laugh. 

"I'm not." Steve jerked back, gripping his shoulders and downright beaming at him. “Sam! I don’t believe...I looked for you. I spent weeks, but I couldn’t...they always had things that needed doing, and I never had time to just focus on...and I know Fury knew how to find you, because he found me, but he wouldn’t tell me. Said you were better left out of it. I couldn’t find that damned apartment building, hadn’t been paying enough attention when we...I looked for you,” he concluded, and might have seemed chagrined if it weren’t for the massive grin.

“I didn’t figure I was hard to find,” Sam said with a grin right back at him.

Steve laughed. “You never told me your last name.”

Sam blinked, thought about it for a moment, but figured he’d never remember everything he’d said back then. “Well, shit.”

“Yeah.” Steve blinked suddenly, stepping back a little and dropping his hands from Sam’s shoulders. A hint of red snuck across his cheeks and nose. “How are...you look great.”

“You know it. You do too. I’ve kept track, much as I can. I get the feeling you do a lotta shit that never makes the papers.”

“And too much that does,” Steve replied with a wry little smile that almost at once stretched back into a wide grin.

He did look great. Almost the same, physically, but without the aura of apprehension he'd had back then. He carried himself like he'd settled into his own skin finally.

“I can’t believe...what are you doing in DC?”

Sam’s chin lifted as he answered, his pride on this subject full and complete and shameless. “Working. I’m a peer counselor at the VA. Transferred here from New York a few months back, when they were running low on help.”

Took a pay cut for it, which was absurd when he factored in that the cost of living hadn’t gone down that much. But the idea that vets in DC, in the heart of the beast, needed help they weren’t getting...that hadn’t sat well with Sam.

Steve glowed at him. “That’s great! So you’re...doing better? You look great.”

“So you said.” Sam was glad his own flush didn’t show. “There’s always gonna be bad days, but there’s a lot more good ones now than there were.” He studied Steve. “What about you? You got yourself sorted out? Beyond what the headlines talk about?”

“Yeah. I mean, as much as I ever could, I guess.” His smile dimmed, but only from blinding to simply radiant. “You can’t get back what you lost, right? Gotta move forward.”

Sam laughed. “I don’t know, seems like sometimes you can run right into something you lost in a way you’d never expect.”

Steve’s grin went right back to blinding.

A moment later it faded and he dug a vibrating phone out of the pocket of his track pants. He scowled at the screen, huffing a breath that sounded downright petulant. He glanced back towards the street off the path and back to Sam quickly.

“I gotta go. Damn it. Hey…” He pulled a small notebook from the other pocket along with a tiny pencil. “Which VA you working at? Write down the address. I went to a few of those meetings in New York whenever I could, looking for you, but I must have lousy timing.”

Sam scrawled out the address of his center and, after the briefest hesitation, scrawled his phone number under it. He held it back out to Steve. “Here. Call me. If you’re gonna stop by, I mean. There’s a lot of folks there who’d consider it a real honor to meet you.”

Steve looked down at the page before closing it and holding it against his chest like someone nefarious was gonna slide out of the bushes and try to take it. “I’ll call,” he said. He glanced back towards the street, and his grin was down to a low simmer when he faced Sam again. “Hey. I, um.” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “Listen. I’m sorry about…when we met, I...”

Sam just raised his eyebrows. After a moment, though, he gave the guy a break. “I understand why you lied. I get why you vanished. Now I get why you never showed up again. Nothing to apologize for, sometimes shit just happens how it happens.”

“Yeah.” Steve frowned, looking towards the street again as a sleek black Corvette suddenly screeched up to the curb. He made a sound like a growl, discontent wrinkling his brow, but he stuck out a hand. “It’s really good to see you, Sam.”

“You too, mystery man.” Sam blinked at the outstretched hand, but shook after a moment. Nice and amiable. “Come down to the VA sometime, for real. I won’t be hard to find, I promise.”

Steve grinned broadly as he backed towards the street. “You can count on it.”

Sam watched him go, enjoying the view.

Enjoying it a little too obviously, if the redhead in the Corvette’s amused expression was directed his way.

Steve stooped with his hand stretched out, almost on the door handle, but paused. He straightened, standing still for a minute.

Then he turned on his heel and came back to Sam double-time. His face was red, but his gaze was steady. “I meant to tell you. I’ve wanted to tell you for two years. You were right.”

Sam smiled. “Damn right I was. About what?”

“No.” Steve reached out. He grabbed Sam’s hand and held it like they weren’t standing in the middle of Tourist Central, DC.

“I had just woken up from the ice, Sam. Literally minutes before you saw me. And everything was wrong. The people, the buildings, the smells, the sounds. Even the air was wrong. I felt wrong, even, underneath my skin. Then you reached out and grabbed me, and you...you were right. First right thing I saw. Only right thing, for a long time. And. I’ve been wanting you to know that.”

He’d gotten past it, really. Two years was long enough to recover from a day’s time spent with someone. But then Sam figured he hadn’t actually gotten past it at all, because the grin on Steve’s face reminded him of the one Sam said goodbye to, looking up lazily at him from an abused comforter on his sister’s living room floor.

And then it was like no time passed at all.

He blinked back a swell of dangerously emotional warmth, twining his fingers with Steve’s. “Wilson.”

Steve’s head tilted but his smile was an unwavering thing.

Sam cleared his throat. “My name. I never told you. Sam Wilson.”

Christ, Steve’s face. That smile slid into something that Sam might mistake, if he was completely full of himself, as being downright adoring. He had to look away from it. It was too much, too bright, too everything.

“Write it in your little notebook, okay? I’m not taking the blame if you lose track again.”

Steve laughed, freer and easier than Sam had ever heard him before. “You think I’m ever gonna forget it now that I know?” He backed up a couple of steps, stretching his arm out instead of letting Sam go. “I gotta go. I...I’ll see you soon, Sam Wilson.”

“I’m counting on it, Steve Rogers.”

Steve squeezed his hand, and let it drop. An instant later he closed the space between them again in one giant step and kissed him, firm and not exactly brief, though he kept it mostly clean.

Sam choked out a muffled laugh in surprise, but gave as good as he got.

Steve drew back after a moment and spun around, jogging back to the Corvette without risking a look back.

Sam grinned, crouching down and peering into the car, wondering if the redhead’s complete absence of any kind of expression meant she hadn’t seen that kiss, or didn’t care, or if she was the type whose lack of expression said a hell of a lot on its own.

Steve climbed in and shut the door, sneaking a last grin over at Sam through the window. The redhead said something, maybe two words tops, and Sam watched a blush slide up Steve’s face.

The car peeled away from the curb and into traffic, fast and loud as a real-life superhero deserved.

Sam straightened once the car was out of sight, grinning to himself big enough to challenge Steve’s. He had the feeling that the routine and peace he’d come out for a run for that morning to get were both about to take massive hits in his life.

But hey, Steve had a point about wrongs and rights. A hell of a lot of wrongs in the world, in Sam’s life, in Steve’s life. When something right came along, you took what came with it, or you let it get away.

And Sam sure as hell wasn’t letting this one get away again.