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Whether buoyed by the super soldier serum coursing through his veins, or by the thought that he might finally be able to save his best friend after all, Steve kept reading the Winter Soldier's file long after he'd run out of new pages. No doubt any time now there would be plan, and they'd hit the road, wind in their hair, and unknowable baddies at their back. Soldiers need something to believe in, and Steve offered that to Sam in spades.
But after he found himself annoyed with the birds for blatantly flying around outside when some people's wings had been dramatically-- and rudely-- ripped from them, what Sam really needed was coffee. No matter how many people from the 40's kept popping up, it was still the 21st century. There was a Starbucks not far from his place. Captain America might be able to bounce back from a nearly fatal injury and pull an all-nighter without so much as dark circles under his eyes, but the dude was Wonder Boy. Nothing wrong with a man needing a little caffeine to make up for the sleep he'd missed out on.
A little fresh air, a venti of the strongest coffee mass-production had to offer, and he had whittled his fantasies about punching the Winter Soldier (Bucky-- he would have to get used to calling him that around Steve) down to only a handful. You don't leave a man behind, certainly not Steve's right hand man. But you also don't destroy a man's jetpack without consequences. Brainwashing or not.
He wouldn't ask Steve, at least not now, but he wondered if all that brutality really was so far removed from who Barnes had been. He might not have super powers, but he could read just as well as Steve, and not all the pages in the file were post-WWII.
He should grab a few pastries. Few things in life were more pathetic to hear than the grumbling of Captain America's stomach and it was hard to sneak in a quick trip to the supermarket when taking down enormous intelligence organizations. The CIA had better not turn out to be secretly run by evil aliens, because he'd already maxed out his quota for the year.
Ignoring all the open seats around, someone sat down across from him.
"Hell no," Sam said. "Not 'til I'm finished. I earned this damn coffee."
The Winter Soldier just stared. The man had traded his uniform for a baseball hat and an ordinary blue jacket with gloves to cover up his metallic hand.
For a super secret assassin, he sure had a bad habit of showing up in public places.
If he attacked, there were only two exits, and enough civilians to start trampling each other if they panicked. The windows, though, were what concerned him most because Sam knew he'd get a one way ticket straight through them. Should've sat closer to the counter.
He reached into his pocket, thumbing through his phone for Steve's number.
But then, just as abruptly as he'd come, the Winter Soldier stood up and left.
Sam only hesitated a moment, before jamming the phone to ear.
"Steve," he said, running out onto the street. "He's here."
He shouldn't have wasted those seconds, though. The Winter Soldier was nowhere in sight, and long gone by the time Steve showed up, the way he was trying to keep the hope off his face twisting Sam's stomach.
"We'll find him," he said.
"What was he doing?" Steve wanted to know. Thing was, Sam didn't have an answer.
"We'll find him," he repeated. "You can ask him yourself."
***
They'd turned down Fury's offer to hunt down the remnants of Hydra. No one had given Barnes the same memo. It was the year abroad in Europe he'd never taken, but with more dead bodies and burnt down buildings and a little less gelato.
Moscow had some beautiful buildings and some of the nastiest looks he'd ever received in his life. Russian hadn't been high on his list of languages to learn while he was in Iraq. He had yet to find a sympathetic shop keeper.
"One," he said, holding up a finger. "One tall coffee."
Russia, Italy, America-- Starbucks baristas had all perfected the same level of disdainful condescension, only with added language barrier difficulties when abroad. Steve had begged off-- "It just doesn't taste quite right"-- but the man would appreciate it someday. Might not be the shining example of what New Deal capitalism Steve believed in, but there was something nice about being able to pop into a little piece of home no matter where they went and Steve always smiled when Sam came back with a cookie for him.
For months, now, they'd only seen the aftermath of Barnes' rampage, not even the briefest glimpse of the man himself. Sam could hardly be blamed for being unprepared for him to sit down at the table again, this time with a coffee of his own in hand.
Sam was quicker to reach for his phone this time.
"Don't," Barnes said.
"Don't what?" Sam asked, counting the obvious weapons on the man. One gun at his side, another at his ankle. Who knows how many knives hidden underneath his clothes.
Barnes didn't reply, but he reached over and pulled the phone out of Sam's grasp, leaving it on the table between them.
"You break it you bought it," Sam said. "My plan doesn't include an upgrade for another year."
"Who are you?" Barnes asked, sipping his coffee as though they were just friends catching up about the weather. His eyes, though, were still as cold as ever, and his face just as unreadable.
"Excuse me?" Sam said. If Barnes was going to attack, he probably would've done it already. Barnes just waited. He wasn't the kind of man who had to ask questions twice. "Sorry, I don't give out my name to people who want to kill me."
"Sam Wilson. Former para-rescueman. Two tours Iraq," Barnes lists.
"If you already know that," Sam begins, sure if the list went on it'd go into things like his home address and details too personal to be coming out of Barnes's mouth.
"Sam Wilson has no reason to be involved in this," Barnes said.
"Just a guy helping out a friend," Sam said. "That's who I am."
"A friend," Barnes said flatly.
"One we have in common," Sam said, heart beating a little faster.
"He remembered me," Steve had said, before honestly forced him to correct himself. "He remembered something. I know he did."
Steve thought if he could just get Bucky face to face again, he could break through. Sam wasn't Steve. He'd led enough therapy sessions to know that pressing too hard didn't fix people, it broke them. But this wasn't PTSD, wasn't anything he was used to dealing with.
"Steve Rogers," he said, watching carefully for even a flicker of recognition.
"Stop following me," Barnes said. He stood in one fluid motion and had left the store before Sam could blink.
But he'd learned his lesson. Sam didn't hesitate twice.
"Steve," he said, on the phone as he jogged after Barnes. "Get your ass down here right now."
He followed Barnes down a block, and then another, and then lost him around a corner.
"We'll get him next time," Sam said, hours later, when Steve finally gave up looking.
"Did he say anything?" Steve asked.
"No," Sam replied. Barnes could deliver his own messages.
***
In London, Natasha caught up with them, with a secret and a mission for Steve that Sam isn't a part of but is pretty sure he's going to see plastered all over the news. He left before they could ask him to, offers of caffeine on the way out.
"What, no tea and crumpets?" Steve said.
"No one appreciates that sass, Rogers," Sam said, shutting the door behind him while Steve laughed. He had a feeling that would be the last time Steve smiled for a while.
They say third time's the charm, and maybe for Barnes that's true. He pick pocketed Sam's phone before he sat at the table, putting it into his jacket so Sam can see exactly what's happened.
"So, Starbucks addiction, huh," Sam said. "Don't worry, man. Happens to the best of us."
"Not the best of us," Barnes said. He leans back and runs a hand through his hair, short now, almost like in the pictures Sam used to look at in the museum. "I thought soldiers were better at following orders. You're still following me."
He still holds himself like a man who doesn't mind letting you know he can kill you in a hundred different ways. But--
"You asked me who I was. I never got a chance to return the favor," Sam said. And it's not much more a brief spasm, barely a blink but--
"Surely Captain America has better things to with his time," Barnes said. "You said you were his friend."
"Steve," Sam said. "He prefers Steve."
But there's life in Barnes's eyes now.
"Tell him to give up. There's no happy ending here," Barnes said, standing. Sam reaches out and grabs his wrist before he can think it through.
"Look, I've got his back, no matter what he wants to do. So you want him to stop, he's right across the street," Sam said.
"Let go," Barnes said calmly. Not wanting to have to deal with a broken wrist, or worse, Sam complies. Figuring out insurance payments would be too much of a bitch to deal with.
He doesn't chase after Barnes. He wouldn't call Steve, even if could. Whatever Natasha wanted to talk about needs a hundred percent of his attention. If he's lucky, they'll already be gone before he goes back to the hotel.
Just in case they're not, he spends the next hour coming up with a convincing lie to explain his missing cell phone.
***
It doesn't end where it started, at least not for him.
"There are better places to get coffee in Brooklyn," Bucky said, pulling up a chair.
"Sorry, I'm reading," Sam said, flapping his paper. Emblazoned across the front is a picture of Steve and a half dozen other super heroes. The world still hadn't figured out how to process New York (or London, or SHIELD). Therapists were about to become the most popular people on the planet.
He'd left his phone back at Stark Towers. If anyone needed him, they could find him.
"You said you had his back," Bucky said after a moment.
"I do," Sam said. "If he needs it."
Bucky snorted.
"If you wait 'til he asks, it'll be too late. He thinks he can carry the world by himself," Bucky said, no small amount of scorn in his tone.
"I didn't see you helping out either," Sam said mildly. He thanks Riley for all those games of poker, because inside he's screaming. A goddamn near-Earth destroying catastrophe and now Bucky suddenly remembers who he is.
"I don't think they would've been happy to see me," Bucky said.
"Except Steve," Sam points out.
"Steve's an idiot," Bucky scoffs.
"Obviously. Nobody smart would spend that much on you," Sam agrees. Bucky's eyes narrow, his voice cool when he speaks.
"I seem to remember you being there the whole time."
"Never said I was any better," Sam said. "But we can all be a little stupid about our friends, don't you think?"
As he expects, Bucky gets up to leave. What he doesn't expect, is for him to pause, and suddenly look awkward in a way a man with so much training rarely does.
"He's okay, right," he mumbles. Sam swallowed around a lump in his throat. The picture on the newspaper just reminds him of two days spent staring at the news, calling numbers that never picked up, and a sick feeling that Steve had finally met his match.
"Yeah," he croaked. "He's okay."
Bucky nodded.
"Go see him," Sam said, clearing his throat. "He's at Stark Tower."
He went back to his paper. He'd give Bucky two days. Whatever answers the Winter Soldier had found, no man who looked like that over Steve Rogers was going to leave this city any time soon.
***
He was a grown man who had better things to do than hang around in a coffee shop. But the next day he was headed down to the same Starbucks anyway, because something had to balance out the abnormality of what the world had become, and the pack of people he was crashing with. Steve was not an adequate representation of the rest of the Avengers.
But sitting inside, talking at the same table he'd claimed yesterday, were Steve and Bucky. Bucky's shoulders were tense, Steve still smiling like he'd just discovered what being happy was like. Bucky said something, and Steve reached under the table, taking his hand.
Sam could get coffee somewhere else.
Someday he'd have to tell the grandkids about how he helped Captain America and Winter Soldier get together. Back together? He'd ask Steve tomorrow. He doubted either of them would make it back to the Tower that night.