Written for: sarratorrens. April 13th, 2019 Sam & Bucky "What did you say?" Platonic soulmates.

When it was all over, from the fighting to the politics to the alien invasions, they finally sat down and talked about it.

"You're an asshole." Sam had no interest in dancing around the issue. Good. Neither did Bucky.

"I'm not the one who wouldn't move his seat." Bucky eyed Sam's shoulder, where those fateful words from that fateful car trip had been inked by the universe in silver writing.

Sam adjusted his shirt. "I'm not the one who rips steering wheels out of cars."

"I said I was sorry."

"I loved that car."

"You can buy another one."

"Would you say that to a mother who lost a child?"

Bucky massaged his forehead. This was worse than trying to stop Steve from jumping out of planes without a parachute. "You know what? Fine. Have it your way."

He stalked out of the room, not looking back and not caring if Sam watched him go.

He didn't need some dumb platonic soulmate anyway.

Two days later, his brand new box of Rice Krispies went missing.

It was Sam. He had no evidence, no witnesses, and no clear motive, but it was absolutely Sam.

When Steve didn't believe him because Sam was such a stand-up guy who'd never steal, Bucky took matters into his own hands. He picked the lock to Sam's apartment and walked in to find him at the kitchen table, the offending box of cereal right there in plain view as he enjoyed a snapping, crackling, popping bowl.

"That's mine," Bucky said, making use of his 'Soldat' voice as Natasha liked to call it.

Unlike a trainee or Peter Parker, Sam was entirely unmoved. "We're soulmates. Soulmates share."

"We're also human beings. Human beings ask before they take things. Otherwise, they get their spines broken."

"Nobody's stopping you from having some." Sam gestured at an empty chair. "Go ahead. I dare you."

Bucky snatched up his cereal box and knocked the milk carton to the floor for good measure. White liquid spilled everywhere. It would take Sam all morning to clean it up.

For the moment, Bucky was satisfied.

He woke up from a nap with a photo stuck to his arm. Attached with a kitchen magnet. It was one of those New York skyline magnets they sold at souvenir shops in Times Square. Bucky hated those things.

The photo was of Sam's hand flipping him off. How mature.

Bucky dropped his pants and Sam's phone was soon graced with the image of his perfect ass. That'll show him.

Sam's redwings malfunctioned in a battle against a terrorist cell holding an investment bank hostage. Instead of attacking the bad guys, they staged a mutiny. While Sam batted them away, Bucky dispatched all seven terrorists with ruthless efficiency. Every single one of them was an amateur. They couldn't even aim right. Why the Avengers had been called when a rookie with a donut in his hand could've handled it was beyond him.

The headlines the next day were great, though.

WHITE WOLF DEFEATS TERRORISTS. RESCUES TEAMMATE.

"You still haven't thanked me for saving your ass," Bucky grinned at Sam as he dropped another copy of the paper onto his lap (there were seven hundred more stashed away in his closet to wallpaper Sam's bedroom with later).

Sam had the eyes of a hungry leopard. "What did you do to my babies?"

Bucky gasped. "Are you accusing me of sabotaging your equipment to embarrass you on a mission? I can't believe you think so little of me."

"I can't believe suck my dick," Sam snapped, crumpling up the paper and throwing it at Bucky's head. To his credit, he made the shot.

"No can do. After that horrible offense, I don't even want to be in the same room as you. Goodbye, dear platonic soulmate of mine."

Bucky departed to a cacophony of bad language.

"Hello? Are there any superheroes around? I need some new photos for my album."

It was a curly-haired young woman with glasses and a hat. Bucky had never seen her before, so he figured she was one of those new 'consultants' Steve was telling him about. They were getting two: a physicist and an administrative assistant. This girl didn't look like either of those things, but as this was a private lounge no visitors should have access to, he wouldn't call security just yet.

"Hi," he said, waving her over. "I'm Bucky, I-"

"I know you!" She skipped over and shook his hand. That was the idea anyway. If she hadn't grabbed the metal one he'd worry about his shoulder dislocating. "Bucky Barnes, Winter Soldier, White Wolf. So many names, dude. You need to consolidate. I'm Darcy Lewis, intern, and assistant extraordinaire. You may have heard of me."

"Vaguely," Bucky took his arm back as quickly and politely as he could. "I knew you were coming, but-"

"Yeah, this is way more exciting than when I went to New Mexico to be Jane's assistant." She flopped down on the couch like this was her own apartment. "Not that New Mexico can't be fun if you're in a place like Albuquerque, but we were in a real dust bowl. Actually, a dust bowl would've been good. This was like a dust bowl within a dust bowl. I remember this one time I had to charge my phone, and-"

Thirty minutes later

"I say to the guy, 'I don't care about your grandmother's bowel movements, just pay me five bucks so I can go. And then he gave me the money and I bought a new charger, and I could finally charge my phone." Darcy took the first breath Bucky had seen her take since they met. "And then there was the time I had to get Jane a new battery for her laptop."

"You know what? I just remembered I have to be somewhere right now." Bucky shot off the couch like it was on fire. "Somewhere important… but you know, that was a really great story you were telling. I have this buddy, Sam Wilson, and I bet he'd love to hear it."

"You mean the Falcon?" Darcy's eyes lit up. "He's my favorite! No offense."

"None taken." He entered Sam's number into her phone, along with his apartment number and other relevant information.

"I'll just pop on over and say hi." She raced out the door, only to poke her head back in seconds later. "Almost forgot. Say cheese!"

Bucky did not say cheese and he didn't smile. Darcy took the picture anyway.

"Nice," she said, tapping a few buttons. "Friend me on Facebook. I'll tag you."

When she was gone and beautiful silence was restored, Bucky fell on the couch in a dead faint.

'Have a good time, Sammy,' he thought evilly.

Bucky went back to his apartment and ate dinner while waiting for the threatening text message he was sure to receive at any moment. By noon the next day, it still hadn't come.

A full twenty-four hours after Bucky unleashed the Chatty Cathy horror that was Darcy upon an unsuspecting Sam, his phone finally went off. Sam had sent him a photo. It was him with Darcy in his lap, kissing his cheek. There was writing on her neck he hadn't seen before. It looked like the singular 'no' on his bicep.

'Thanks for finding her for me.'

Bucky crushed the phone.

'Just great,' he thought later on after failing to fix his phone. 'Now I need to buy a new one and Sam is one up on me. I can't believe that guy. Here I was trying to make peace, and all he wants to do is act like a two-year-old kicking sand in my face. Un-fucking-real. Of all the people I have to be destined for. I don't even want to think about what my romantic soulmate will be like.'

He stepped outside and ran straight into a petite figure, halting his train of thought. The woman, soft where he was solid, bounced off him like a ping pong ball. She was no bigger than Steve before the serum, and some long-buried protective instincts rose to the surface as he bent over her.

"Jesus, I am so sorry. Let me help you."

"I'm fine," she said, pushing hair out of her eyes. "Should've looked where I was going. I always do that."

She pulled herself up with his arm. Bucky would've helped properly, but her words were burning in his brain and on his back. He stared at her like an idiot, like he hadn't been lectured by his father every day on what to do when this day came. Something about being a gentleman and inviting her to dinner which he had to pay for. Maybe that last part was different from the modern day's more egalitarian attitude towards dating, but at the very least, he shouldn't be staring so much. Or at all.

"Sorry," she coughed, rolling her shoulders. "I'm Jane Foster, I think you know my friend, Darcy."

Bucky nodded. "Uh-huh…"

Jane bit her lip. "She told me I should come and talk to you. I'm not sure why... actually, did I just say your-"

"Soulmate words," he supplied. "Yeah, I… I think you did."

He took Jane's hand and squeezed it. Not too tight, just enough to feel her warmth. She squeezed right back and suddenly, the day was a little brighter.

It became easier to avoid Sam. He just had to spend all his free time with Jane. Getting to know her, learning about her research, taking her on long walks through the park, kissing her under the moonlight, making her cry out his name in ecstasy.

He barely thought about Sam for a whole month. If they worked together, they didn't speak unless it was mission-critical. Nobody knew about their secret bond yet. Steve chalked the animosity up to stress and never tried playing mediator. For Christmas, Tony gifted them a 'get-along' shirt, which was promptly stolen by Jane and used as a sweat rag while she performed maintenance on her weather machines.

It was, shockingly enough, she who breached the topic two days after he and Sam took down a suicide bomber and only got the bomb dismantled with four seconds to go.

"Look, it's not that simple," Bucky said, pressing an ice pack to his head. He wasn't in pain anymore, but with the cold came numbness. He needed some of that right now. "I've been trained in a lot of things, but diffusing bombs is not one of them. We got it in the end."

"Yeah, barely," Jane said, turning a wrench harder than she needed to. "If it'd taken more time, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now. Because you'd be dead. You understand that, right?"

Bucky did, and it really sucked. He never wanted to be one of those guys who complained about 'nagging girlfriends', especially when Jane had every reason to be mad at him. He just… really didn't want to have this conversation right now. "What do you want me to do?"

Jane dropped the wrench and took a seat on the table. She was so light, it barely squeaked under her weight.

"Darcy told me you and Sam were arguing the whole time," she puts a hand on his face, making him meet her gaze. "That's why you were having problems."

"He's an idiot."

"He's your partner. And your soulmate."

"You're my soulmate."

"Look, I know romantic and platonic soulmates aren't the same thing, but they're not so different either." Jane wrapped her arms around him, moving from the table to his lap. "Most people don't even have one soulmate, let alone two. People like us… we're born with an emotional support system already laid out, and that's not something to run away from."

Bucky furrowed his brow. "Us? You have a platonic mark, too?"

She pulled back her hair to show him the words behind her ear. It was such a small space, no wonder he'd never noticed before.

"Man this place is hot as balls. How do you even stand it?" he read, a grin forming. "Darcy, huh?"

Jane smiled. "The first few weeks were the worst. We couldn't agree on anything. She drove me so nuts I had to sleep on the roof by the firepit."

That didn't sound right. Bucky had seen them together a bunch of times and those girls couldn't be closer if they were sisters.

She seemed to read his mind. "We needed time to get where we are now, and I think you can have the same thing with Sam if you try."

"He won't try," Bucky said. "He's hated me from the start. Not that I blame him. We didn't meet under the best circumstances."

"None of that was your fault, Bucky. Sam knows that."

"Does he?"

"Yes." Jane touched her forehead to his. "I know I can't force you to talk to him, but at least think about it. Because deep down, I think you guys do care about each other, or this wouldn't be hurting you so much."

"It's not," he said, even though lying to her felt worse than a punch to the stomach.

"Just promise me you'll be civil with him. You know, so you don't get blown up."

"I promise," Bucky mumbled. Then he buried his face in her neck where he could forget all his troubles.

Sam was in the lounge, which sucked because it should've been empty this time of day.

Bucky was only there because he had no bad guys to fight and Jane wouldn't be back from her meeting for another half hour. With nothing else to do, he'd hoped to get a nap in and maybe watch some TV. Instead, he found the bane of his existence resting in a recliner (the one Bucky usually sat in of course) reading a book and pretending to be dead to the world.

Which he wasn't. His hands tensed and his breathing sped up as Bucky made a spot for himself on the couch.

The TV was in the corner and the remote within reach. He should've turned it on, but he didn't. He grabbed a magazine off the coffee table. Nobody knew why Tony kept them when nobody ever read them. Apparently they were for the aesthetic. Whatever that meant.

"So…" he licked his lips. "Nice weather we're having."

"Yeah," said Sam.

"Pretty warm for March. Must be that climate change thing I keep hearing about."

"Right."

Bucky stretched his neck. Sam scratched his nose. They continued their reading as Bucky found himself repeating the same sentence six times. Every few seconds, his eyes flicked to Sam, searching for the slightest shift in expression. He soon gave up on the illusion of reading and set the magazine down.

He took a breath-

"I'm sorry, okay?"

-and released it. Hard. His chest hurt now. "What did you say?"

Sam groaned like repeating himself was worse than the labors of Hercules. "You heard me. I'm sorry. I've been acting like a jerk and being unfair, so I'm sorry. I promise not to do it again."

Bucky stared at him. "Did Darcy put you up to this?"

"You bet she did." Sam returned to his book. He appeared to be on the wrong page. "Jane put you up to it?"

"She wants us to make up and get along because that's what soulmates do. Did you know she and Darcy are platonic?"

"Yeah, I saw the mark."

Bucky sighed and rubbed his face. "They're not going to let it go until we make up for real."

"Eh, they'll get bored."

"No, we won't!" Darcy and Jane stuck their heads out from behind the kitchen counter. Jane's cursed as she realized they were caught and forced Darcy down. "Uh… I mean, pay no attention to the women next to the fridge. Carry on as you were"

Sam rolled his eyes but couldn't hold back a grin. Neither could Bucky.

"I guess we could try," he said. "Make a fresh start or some shit."

"We could also do nothing," said Sam.

"You could also sleep on that couch for a month," Darcy snapped. "You, too, Bucky."

"That's not up to you, Lewis."

"Bucky," Jane said in her rarely used but deadly 'I'm pissed' voice. "Couch."

Sam and Bucky looked at each other. They both knew how this was going to end, no point in delaying it. Bucky curled his fingers, then relaxed them. He held his hand out to Sam. "Hi, I'm Bucky. I'm your platonic soulmate. Nice to meet you."

Sam looked at his hand like it was covered in mud, but took it anyway. "Sam Wilson. Nice to meet you, too."

They shook and somewhere in the back of Bucky's mind where he never ventured, he was actually kind of glad for the semi-truce. Maybe one day, they really could have a nice friendship the way fate intended. Darcy and Jane certainly thought so. They came out of hiding. Darcy had her phone out.

"This is gonna be my new Facebook header." She motioned at Sam. "Come on, Sammy, let's do this."

He stood reluctantly, letting Bucky put an arm around him. "Sammy, huh?"

"Shut the hell up."

They smiled for the camera. The photo proudly adorned Darcy's page for the next few months. And of course, they'd given each other bunny ears.