The immediate aftermath of their victory passes in a shared blur, in which no-one seems to be able to comprehend that the fight is over. All news coverage that Sam sees is just endless footage of reporters trying to dissect events they don't fully understand, and even when their small quartet finally catches up with the rest of the Avengers, most would rather just fall into bed and sleep for a week than give a detailed report of what happened.
It's what most of them end up doing; after Sam reassures himself with a quick head-count and realises that, miraculously, everyone made it, he advises that they rest up and leave any attempt at making sense of their situation for later. It surprises him that they listen to him so willingly, as if the Captain America mantle has promoted him to leadership even while he has an arm wrapped around Steve, but that's yet another detail he can focus on later. For now, he desperately needs to sleep.
A brief flight in the quinjet takes the Avengers, sans Bruce and Thor and their newer allies, silently back to the underground base they've adopted as their own, and Sam finds himself mindlessly wandering to the quarters he and Bucky have shared for two weeks. He should probably go to medical first, or at the very least take a shower, but the only thing that motivates him to take a single step is the promise of a warm bed.
Their quarters seem smaller than he remembers, although the fact that Steve is now with them likely doesn't help. The lack of a third bed doesn't even seem to cross their minds as an issue though, as Bucky and Steve simply collapse together on a bed that is far too small to comfortably hold them both, and they don't even bother pulling the covers over themselves before the only sound that emerges from them is a soft snoring. Sam pours all his amusement at the situation into a quiet smirk, collapsing into his own bed and for once finding comfort in its once-smothering softness.
The fact that he's covered in sweat and dust and blood only bothers him for a moment before he slips into the most restful night's sleep he's had in weeks.
The first hour of what should be a serious meeting delving into the intricacies of how they won a seemingly unwinnable war, and whether similar threats are likely to plague them in future, is mostly wasted on relieved hugs, with Steve understandably getting the brunt of it. Natasha ends up hugging him for a solid three minutes before pulling both Sam and Bucky into her arms with surprising strength, lowering her voice to whisper "Look after him for me," in their ears before wandering back to Clint and resting her head on his shoulder in a rare display of exhaustion.
Looking over to his suddenly not-dead friend, it's easy to see why she's concerned. Despite them all managing to get a solid six hours of sleep, dark circles still line Steve's eyes while his posture has slipped into a weary slouch, and though he's capable of smiling, it never quite reaches his eyes. He'd been able to grab a quick shower before heading to the boardroom, so at least the layer of blood and grime is gone, but it's difficult for Sam to shake the images of yesterday out of his head.
He puts off thinking about such things and spends time catching up with as many people as he can. As he wanders around the room, he overhears Scott excitedly telling the young, seemingly out of his depth, Peter Parker about some incredible moves he'd been able to let loose in the battle; he sees Rhodey and Tony sitting together in the corner, talking quietly and sharing the warm smiles they reserve only for each other; he shakes hands with Clint before pulling him into a firm hug, and lets himself laugh when the archer asks "So, you think I'll actually be able to retire now?"
Wanda sits quietly beside T'Challa, seeming understandably drained considering she was among those who delivered a final, fatal blow upon Thanos (apparently, he'd been surprisingly easy to kill when several angry gods had relieved him of his precious Infinity Stones), while the man beside her shares a private smile with Sam, somehow maintaining his grace when everyone else is making no secret of the fact that they'd happily spend a year in bed.
It's a shame when the formal conversation finally starts, even though Sam must admit that being able to piece together the events of yesterday makes him feel a little less clueless. From what he hears, the bulk of the alien army was wiped out by their Asgardian allies, while smaller parties of Avengers including Sam and Bucky, Natasha and Clint, and T'Challa, Rhodey and Tony scouted the surrounding streets for those that escaped.
Once the army was destroyed, besides the odd leftovers, half of their efforts had gone towards containing the threat of the mind-controlled civilians (which was thankfully achieved without casualties as a result of Sam's advance warning) while the other half, mostly made up of the more super-powered among them, doubled down on Thanos in order to separate him from his prized collection before wiping him out. Somehow, through the combined efforts of an Asgardian army, the Guardians of the Galaxy, the Hulk, and Wanda, this had been achieved and the Infinity Gems had been neutralised, releasing the Mind Stone's victims and rendering Thanos - though not exactly weak - no longer indestructible and heavily outnumbered.
Once their enemy had fallen and they'd been able to recover the imprisoned Doctor Strange and use the Mind Stone to reanimate Vision, they'd been left standing in the quiet of the aftermath along with everyone else, asking themselves what the hell was supposed to happen now.
It seems that there's not going to be an easy answer to that.
It's when Steve starts talking that Sam realises that as hellish as his two weeks of grief had been, he at least hadn't been alone.
He listens with a clenched jaw as Steve recollects his fight with Thanos back in New York; how he'd known going in that it'd be a losing battle; how he'd been ready to die after being mercilessly beaten, only for Thanos to use him as the first test-subject of his newly acquired Mind Stone. He'd spent two weeks trapped within his own mind, forced to watch Thanos's reign of terror upon the Earth and the glee he took in taunting the Avengers, and when he was finally released into the open it was solely on the condition that he slaughter his friends; an order he'd been powerless to refuse.
Sam sees Bucky edge closer to Steve as he speaks, as if daring anyone else to hurt him, and he finds himself silently promising that nothing will tear them apart like that again.
There's not much else to say before long, and their small group are left sitting quietly around the table, uncertainty clinging to them like a bratty child. It's Tony who eventually dares ask "What happens now?", although even that question is met with stunned silence for a few too many minutes.
Sam knows what he wants to do - dreams of his warm bed and a shower - but he also knows that he's in a position of responsibility now and that their bitter fight hasn't only affected the people in this room. There are potentially millions of civilians to look after and guide through the aftermath of a war they don't entirely understand, and like it or not, the Avengers can't simply go home and leave them to deal with the wreckage alone.
The clean-up operations and rebuilding of devastated cities will take months or even years. However, as Sam looks at the friends surrounding him, eventually focussing on Steve and Bucky's undaunted expressions, he knows that it's a responsibility they're all willing to take on.
The weeks that follow are rarely quiet, but at the very least Sam's starting to feel like things are returning to normal.
He spends every day working alongside Steve and Bucky and a vast number of civilian volunteers as they clean up and start the rebuilding efforts on the streets of New York, bringing food and medicine and clothing to shelters every morning. Across the world, small pockets of Avengers are doing the same in similarly affected areas. Surprisingly, some of Thor's lot and even the Guardians have stayed to help – with Peter Quill using their efforts as an excuse to explore the home he hasn't seen since he was a child – and Doctor Strange has recruited yet more sorcerers to put their eccentric gifts to good use.
Stark has made quick work in setting up a foundation to help the families of victims across the world as well as those who lost everything in the destruction, pouring millions from his own pocket into it as a starting point while generous donations from all over the world start to build up as well. He's also made good on his peace-offering to Bucky, taking him aside after their meeting and offering to fix his shattered arm.
Sam tries to be subtle as he waits outside the lab where the two are holed up for hours, knowing that his fears are likely irrational but still unable to shake the events of Siberia from his mind, but he quickly learns that any worry he has is for nothing.
He watches, incredulous, as the two emerge from the lab exchanging scatter-gun conversation, a shiny repaired arm at Bucky's side. Stark acts like an excitable puppy as he goes into intricate detail about the prosthetic's mechanics and the science behind the synthetic nerve endings, and Bucky nods along and asks intelligent questions in response, clearly knowing a lot more on the subject than Sam does.
(It's the first time he realises what a massive science-nerd Bucky is, and it provides him with birthday and Christmas present ideas for at least ten years)
Steve spends a lot of time with Clint and Bucky – both veterans of mind control though that's not a title either would take pride in – and Sam for his part leaves them be. There are some things he never wants to understand in detail, and the pain of watching your own hands hurt the people you love is one of those. He sees enough of the brutality such experiences can cause in the way either Bucky or Steve will wake up in the middle of the night, fighting for breath and haunted by past demons.
Sam's not sure he's willing to comprehend much more than that.
"I'm surprised you haven't adopted Star Lord yet."
Sam takes a second to scoff instinctively at Peter Quill's preferred title before looking over to Bucky with a raised, questioning eyebrow.
It's early in the morning and they're helping the elderly owners of a local homeless shelter provide hot food and supplies to their many residents. They're both suited up, and Sam's still getting used to his own version of the Captain America uniform (while Steve still wears his old one, he seems genuinely happy to share the mantle with someone else and so Sam's new title has stuck), but he feels his heart lift a little when excited children approach and ask endless questions. For the most part the parents don't seem to mind; if anything, their presence helps alleviate the boredom that many of the children must be experiencing throughout the day.
"Why would I adopt Quill?" he asks, as he hands over a warm cup of soup to a tiny elderly woman. "Hell, why would I want to adopt anyone?"
"I don't know," Bucky says with a shrug. "I just assumed that adopting clueless saps with zero knowledge of recent pop culture was your thing."
"Ha ha, asshole," Sam says, before uttering a short apology to the young mother in front of him who darts her eyes to the small girl at her side. "Besides, I'm pretty sure Stark's taken care of that. Last time I saw Quill he was singing AC/DC at the top of his lungs."
"Huh," Bucky says, as he passes two cups of tea over to an older couple with a warm smile that is returned without hesitation. If the war has been good for anything, Sam thinks, it's at least shifted the world's perception of Bucky so that they see him in the same light he and Steve do. "I'm not sure I ever got around to them."
"Seriously? Thunderstruck? Highway to Hell? Back in Black? They don't ring any bells?"
Bucky muses for a moment before shaking his head, and Sam mentally decides to update their playlist sometime soon.
"Well then, you are in for a treat," Sam promises. "It won't be long before you're following in 'Star Lord's' footsteps and dancing to them like the embarrassing white guy at a wedding."
That gets Bucky to release a full-bodied laugh, and it hits Sam that it's a sight he hasn't seen for a while. Hell, a normal conversation like this has been a rarity lately, and he's surprised at how nostalgic he feels to share a laugh with a friend.
They hand out the remainder of the food over the next hour and leave the owners of the shelter with the promise that they'll come round again the next morning, before heading off to another shelter several blocks away.
"You know, I've missed this," Bucky says, as they wander along surprisingly intact streets. It's been a while since Sam has seen a built-up area that hasn't been assaulted by countless aliens; he can almost pretend that there isn't an abandoned wreckage only a few streets away and that they're simply taking a stroll along the city, albeit a surprisingly quiet one.
"What, us being dicks to each other?" Sam asks, although in spite of his jest, he understands what Bucky's getting at. He feels a familiar pride when his friend laughs in response, his eyes crinkling as the smile reaches his eyes. It's one of those sights that's been giving him small nuggets of hope over the last few weeks; the promise that they're capable of healing.
"Yeah actually," Bucky says before looking towards Sam, suddenly bashful. "Is that bad?"
"No, course not," Sam replies, dropping all teasing pretence and giving Bucky a genuine smile of his own. "I've missed this too."
As nice as it is to pretend that they're well on their way to healing, spending their nights in the same room as they await allocation to a more permanent apartment is enough to confirm that they all have ghosts clinging to their minds. Waking up to screams or wordless thrashing or the feeling of being yanked from a nightmare that feels a little too real has become routine for all three of them.
Bucky's ghosts stretch from snowy mountains in wartime Europe to blown apart streets in New York and D.C. and seem to encompass everything in-between. More than once he's awoken with tears streaming down his face and spent the rest of the night clinging to Steve, half-asleep and resting his head deliberately over the man's heartbeat.
Steve's ghosts stem from those dreaded two weeks. Sam spends more time than he'd like having to convince a barely-conscious Steve that both he and Bucky are alive after the man has just witnessed his own hands killing them both.
As for Sam's own, well, there's only so many times he can dwell on the sheer numbers of casualties from the full duration of the war before he dreams of an endless horde of the dead, clawing at his throat and demanding to know why he didn't do enough to save them.
It's Steve's turn tonight to wake up with shuddering, painful breaths, rousing Bucky in the process and waking Sam seconds later. They've gotten to the point where their response is instinctive; Bucky will hold Steve's hand and encourage him to take deep breaths, while Sam pushes the twin beds together and climbs in beside Steve, making sure the other man can see that he's alive and well.
"Shh," Bucky whispers as Steve starts to calm, his breaths hitching less often as wet eyes cross from the ceiling to the faces of the men beside him. "It's okay, we're here. We're still here.
"I tried to…" Steve starts, the words coming out in a painful gasp, and Bucky returns to his deep rhythmic breathing, encouraging Steve to do the same. "I killed you both."
"That wasn't you," Sam reminds him, because it's something Steve's sleeping mind tends to forget. "And we're okay." He takes Steve's hand and places it over his own chest, encouraging him to feel the strong heart beneath his shirt. "See? Still beating."
It takes a few minutes for Steve's breathing to return to normal, for him to clench his eyes shut and take a deep, steady breath that indicates that he's finally awake, and it isn't long before the only sound he makes is a whispered, "I'm sorry."
"Don't be," Bucky says, more soothingly than Sam had once thought him capable of, as he brushes sweaty strands of hair away from Steve's forehead. "I wasn't planning on getting much sleep tonight anyway."
Steve laughs weakly, the last dregs of his nightmare fading away as he sits up against the headboard. Sam and Bucky let themselves relax as well and lie down beside him, the trio barely fitting on their combined beds. It wouldn't be the first time they just decided to fall back to sleep with their beds still joined; most of the time it's more comforting that way.
"I miss the good old days," Sam says eventually, filling the silence with the kind of mundane conversation that seems to help them all relax after dealing with one of their episodes. Some nights they'll just try to go straight back to sleep, especially if the following day promises to be eventful, but if not then there's a lot of peace to be found simply in the sound of each other's voices. "Remember when Bucky and I hated each other's guts and you admitted you hadn't seen The Godfather? Good times."
His words have the desired effect, in that Steve and Bucky both start to laugh quietly, breaking the tension that always permeates the air after a nightmare. It's the only sign Sam needs to know that they're going to be okay, for the rest of the night at least.
"Sam," Steve says, looking over to him with a mischievous smirk that's barely visible in the dark. "I have a confession to make."
"What, seriously? Still?!" Sam asks, only half-joking in his shock. On Steve's other side, Bucky starts to cackle, clearly enjoying his incredulity, but Sam decides to keep his barrage of insults aimed at the man to himself. "Christ, imagine if you'd actually died without seeing The Godfather. Now there's a tragedy…"
"Don't you think you're giving it a little too much credit?" Bucky interjects, and Sam playfully huffs because of course he'd take Steve's side. "Poor guy's going to end up disappointed if you keep raising his expectations."
"I guarantee you won't be," Sam tells Steve, and the man simply shrugs in response, aware that the argument's out of his hands. "That's it. As soon as we have free time I am tying you to a chair and you are going to watch both of them."
"Wait, aren't there three of those movies?" Bucky asks.
"Yeah, but only the first two matter."
Steve laughs, and Sam holds onto the sound as if it's something precious. It wasn't too long ago that he thought he'd never hear it again after all, and now he knows that small moments like this are something he needs to cherish. He's gotten a second chance with Steve that he never got with Riley; he's certainly not going to waste it.
"Okay, you win," Steve says, once his laughter at the bickering between Sam and Bucky dies down. "As soon as we have some free time, we're watching The Godfather."
Sam dramatically punches the air in victory while purposefully ignoring Bucky's offhand remark of "We're not going to have free time for about five years though."
His job is done, the tension has been lifted and the horrors that lurk in their sleeping minds forgotten, and he thinks he could drift off into a dreamless rest now without having to face the people he failed to save.
The temptation overwhelms him eventually, as his head starts to rest against Steve's shoulder, and though he hears the other two continuing a quiet conversation, they seem to lower their voices for his benefit. He hadn't realised how tired he is, but it's not the all-encompassing weariness he'd been forced to adapt to only a few months ago, and he finds it easy to drift as his friends' voices lull him to sleep.
They'll be okay in the end, he thinks. They may be a little scarred and fractured, but they've survived too much to shatter now. He's not one for indulging in the fantasy that he's invincible, has suffered too much loss in the past for this to be the case, but in this quiet moment, with his friends by his side, he finds it's nice to pretend that nothing more can hurt them.
The end of the line will simply have to wait.
A/N - So, we're nearly at the end. I have the epilogue written and I only need to do a final edit before I can put it up too. Hopefully that should only take a few hours.
Thank you so much for your response to this story, and for being patient as it ran away with me. It's been fun to write even though it's taken over my life a little! I hope you enjoyed this chapter, as well as the one coming up :)