like the rest of the fandom, i watched tfatws and am now obsessed with these two and their dynamic. one day i'll write a Proper Serious Fic about them, but until then i hope you enjoy this lil oneshot of their banter, sam's good looks, and bucky's staring problem.

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"How again did you bust your lip?"

Sam shot Bucky a death glare from where he was sitting on a too-cushy brown recliner, Sharon standing above him with a needle and thread as she carefully stitched his split lip back together. Bucky found the situation hilarious. Well, he would have if there hadn't been a bounty on their heads and a clock ticking for them to locate the Flag Smashers.

"Something tells me Sam cannot answer your question at the moment," Zemo mused, idly flipping through a Madripoor magazine.

"Sam is not going to say one word to anyone about anything until I'm done," Sharon muttered, gaze narrowing as she slowly pulled the thread through Sam's bottom lip. "Unless he wants to add a puncture wound next to his stitches."

Bucky snorted as Sam rolled his eyes. It didn't take much longer for Sharon to finish, however, and soon Sam was observing his reflection in a small mirror, tracing his thumb just beneath the sewn wound.

"So how'd you bust your lip?" Bucky repeated after a pause. His comment earned an amused head shake from Sharon as she cleaned the needle before returning it and her thread to a cupboard above the sink.

Sam sighed, turning around to face Bucky and crossing his arms over his chest. "You know how the entire city of Madripoor was chasing us as we ran from Selby?"

"Yeah."

"And they had assorted deadly weapons on them?"

"A few."

"Including their fists?"

Bucky supposed a fist could be a deadly weapon. His certainly were, though he did have the advantage of one being made of vibranium. "Right."

"Now take a guess as to how I busted my lip, Buck."

Bucky stared at Sam. Or at Sam's lip, to be precise. Red and slightly swollen where it had been split open and then stitched shut, though the thread was impossible to see from where Bucky sat halfway across the room. "Got it."

Sam shook his head, chuckling. "You need a drink, man."

"That's what the party's for," Sharon said, running a hand through her hair and fluffing the back. "Enjoy yourselves, but try to avoid getting too wasted. We'll have to leave within the hour once I find out where Nagel and the serum are."

"Alcohol doesn't work on me," Bucky muttered.

Sam clapped him on his left shoulder—Bucky's vibranium shoulder—as he crossed the room towards the exit. "Sounds like a you problem, Buck."

Of course it did.

xXxXxXx

"Nagel's at the docks," Sharon explained, pulling on a black jacket and ensuring her gun was in its holster. "His entire lab setup is inside shipping containers."

"Clever place to hide," Zemo mused. "Easily accessible, yet difficult for someone to find if they aren't looking for it."

Bucky agreed. Silently. He preferred to avoid agreeing with Zemo aloud. Based on how Sam had raised a begrudging eyebrow at Zemo's conclusion but kept his own lips sealed, it seemed he was in the same boat.

Sam's bottom lip was less swollen than it had been before the party, Bucky noted, though still red. A bruise or two was probably forming. He still wasn't close enough to see the stitches holding the cut together.

"Dude, you have got to address that staring problem of yours."

Bucky blinked. Okay—maybe he had been looking for too long. But he wasn't going to accept criticism about that from Sam. "Why?"

Sam raised an eyebrow at him. "Because while I may not care if you stare at me, it's going to weird a lot of other people out. Then you'll never make any friends."

Bucky snorted. "Like the new Captain America?" He squared his shoulders, following Sharon out the door as she beckoned for them to leave. "I don't give a shit how he feels about me."

Sam fell into step with Bucky. "I was thinking more about the pretty girl who tried flirting with you at Sharon's party but ran away white-faced the second you made eye contact with her."

Bucky scowled at the recent memory. This wasn't a conversation he wanted to have. Not with Sam. So—he changed the subject. "How's your lip?"

Sam ran his tongue over his bottom lip in response. Which Bucky didn't notice, because he hadn't been watching Sam's expression out the corner of his eye.

"Kind of sore." He gave Bucky a small grin. "Is that why you were staring? Worried about my lip?"

Bucky refocused his gaze dead ahead of them. Zemo's excessively long coat swayed around his knees with each step he took. "Would I have some other reason?"

"My devilishly good looks."

Bucky's scowl deepened. "Shut up."

"Or what?"

"Or I'll reopen your damn sutures."

"Ooh, 'sutures.' Fitting word for an old man."

Bucky was going to kill him.

xXxXxXx

Zemo had long since passed out. The only other sound besides his quiet snoring was the low hum of the jet as they flew towards Latvia. Sam was asleep, too. Or so Bucky had deduced based on his closed eyes and the steady rise and fall of his chest.

Bucky, on the other hand, couldn't sleep. Not that he wanted to. He had more pressing matters on his mind, like the Flag Smashers and his amends and the fact that something between him and Sam was just not clicking. Which… they probably needed to talk about.

Bucky wasn't sure he wanted to do that, either.

Zemo had dimmed the lights in the aircraft before he'd drifted off, but Bucky could nonetheless see the purple bruising on Sam's bottom lip. It had lessened throughout the day, yes, and the dried blood had long since been cleaned off, but concern—the most irritating emotion—continued to gnaw at his stomach. He wished it would stop.

Bucky still couldn't see Sam's stitches, though. He wasn't sure what compelled him to keep looking for the slender threads, but…

Not that it mattered.

Bucky sighed, closing his eyes and leaning back in his seat. He probably wouldn't be able to rest. But he could at least pretend. Of course, dark circles were in fashion according to some girl who'd messaged him on that dating app he'd since uninstalled. So maybe a lack of shut eye was considered more attractive—

"Staring at people while they're asleep is creepy, you know."

Bucky opened one eye to see Sam giving him an all too familiar smirk. "You're one to talk."

"Well, you aren't asleep right now, are you?"

Bucky decided not to dignify that comment with a response.

"But I was. Until your death gaze woke me up."

Bucky snorted. "That's not a thing."

"Considering I was the one rudely awoken from my nap by said death gaze, I can say with authority that it is."

"Shut up."

Sam shook his head. "Come on. You stare at me for an entire half hour, but when I finally wake up, you no longer want to talk? Mighty convenient for you."

Bucky opened both eyes to glare at him. "It was not for thirty minutes."

Sam's grin widened, and Bucky had a sinking feeling he'd stepped right into a trap. "Ah, but you admit you were staring."

Fuck.

"You can't blame me for being a tad curious as to why."

Bucky sighed, closing his eyes a second time and waiting for ten seconds to pass before he changed the subject. "How's your lip?"

He didn't need to be looking at Sam to know the man had reached up to touch said cut at the question. "Healing. Sometimes it hurts to talk."

Bucky snorted. "Then I have the perfect excuse to tell you to stop talking. Shut up—it's for your own good."

"Yeah, yeah." A beat passed. Sam's voice was softer when he spoke again. "Get some sleep, Barnes. You need the rest."

Bucky bit back a sigh. Maybe Sam had a point there.

xXxXxXx

"We need to head to the GRC camp," Sam said, pulling on a light brown jacket. Bucky followed suit with a black one of his own. "If we don't leave now, we risk not getting any information from the refugees about Madani."

"Well, you're going to wait three minutes," Zemo replied, glancing at his reflection on a glass countertop. "I need to touch up my hair."

Bucky frowned. Had Zemo really just—

"Are you seriously jeopardizing our mission because you don't look like a 10?" Sam said dubiously, crossing his arms over his chest.

Bucky doubted Zemo could ever look like a 10. But he kept that thought to himself.

"A 180-second delay will not jeopardize our mission," Zemo replied smoothly. "Besides"—he smirked at Sam—"as is often the case, I know things you don't. We'll be fine." And with that, he slipped into the bathroom.

Sam made a tch sound. "He'd better not take longer than 180 seconds."

"Already timing him," Bucky muttered, mentally counting each tick of the clock on the wall to his left. To his right was Sam, standing close enough that their shoulders brushed.

Sam chuckled. "Of course you are."

Bucky frowned. "Should I be insulted?"

"Pretty sure you can figure that one out on your own, Buck."

Sam was so close to Bucky that when Bucky glanced at him out the corner of his eye, he could see the remaining stitches on Sam's bottom lip. The swelling had all but entirely gone down, and with another day or two he was sure the cut would finish healing and the thread would fully dissolve. Because of course Sharon was the kind of person to have had dissolvable stitches on hand.

Bucky barely stopped himself from grimacing at his own train of thought. Sharon didn't deserve his sarcasm, even if he was keeping it to himself. Sharon was a survivor. And survivors had to be prepared for anything. Dissolvable stitches were a logical—

"Are you timing Zemo or staring at me?"

Bucky swiveled his gaze forward. "What makes you think I can't do both?"

Sam chuckled. "I'm glad you're finally past the denial stage."

He hadn't exactly been given a choice in the matter.

"Let me guess." Sam furrowed his brow and stiffened his shoulders. "'How's your lip?'"

Bucky frowned at the imitation—poor imitation—of his question. "I don't sound like that."

"Sure you don't."

Bucky turned to meet Sam's gaze, crossing his arms over his chest. "Well, since you brought it up—how is your lip?"

Sam shook his head, laughing. "You're impossible."

"Are you going to answer my question?"

Sam raised an eyebrow, a smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth. "My lip is fine. You wanna see how fine?"

Bucky started to say that he could already see how fine, he was plenty close enough to tell that both the bruises and the cut were fading, but before he could get more than a word out—

Sam had already leaned in to capture Bucky's lips with his own. The rough stitches were an odd contrast to how smooth the kiss was, to how easy it was for Bucky to return the tender advance.

Sam pulled away. Bucky could have sworn there was a faint blush rising in his friend's face, though it probably paled in comparison to how ruby red he knew his own ears were.

"Sorry." Sam shoved his hands into his pockets, giving him a slightly awkward smile. Bucky didn't miss the mischievous twinkle in Sam's eyes, though. "Just wanted to see what that felt like."

Bucky's mouth was incapable of forming proper words, opening and closing like a goldfish. "What—"

Zemo stepped out of the bathroom, causing both men to jump. He gave them a wary look in response. "Are you going to kill me because I took 181 seconds fixing my hair?"

The idea of killing Zemo seemed like a fantastic distraction from what had just occurred between himself and Sam, but that would break rule two, and Bucky was certain he'd have more than enough to talk about with Dr. Raynor based on the past 181 seconds alone. Killing Zemo was therefore off the table.

"You know, I think we should all just get going before we have any more awkward conversations," Sam said, gesturing to the door. "How's that sound?"

"Fine with me," Bucky replied, taking the lead out of the apartment as if he had a damn clue where he was headed. Because everything was fine. He was fine, Sam was fine, whatever had just happened between him and Sam was fine.

But maybe he'd check on Sam's lip again later.

Just in case.

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