A/N - Needed to try my hand at writing these two. This is vaguely pre-slash, although there's nothing explicit. It takes place between the battle with Thanos and Tony's funeral, and is my explanation as to why Sam and Bucky spent the funeral looking so goddamn comfortable with each other. This will be four chapters.

Sam was pretty sure something was wrong.

Well, a lot of things were wrong, that much was pretty obvious. Sam had woken up in Wakanda, and then had had about fifteen minutes to try to piece together what was going on before being sent by Dr. Strange to fight Thanos. Defeat Thanos, really, which was honestly pretty cool. But Iron Man had died, which was not cool at all. Also, Sam had found out he'd been dead for the past five years, and then suddenly sprung back into existence along with several other billion people. Which was certainly great for Sam, but from what Sam had gathered, seemed to be causing quite a lot of problems for other people.

Not that Sam really knew much about what was going on. Steve was running interference with the American Government, trying to make them understand that the Avengers had saved all those people, not invited an alien horde to attack Earth. Sam was pretty sure they would be fine - after all, the Government was just as confused and grateful as everyone else. But spending three days stuck mostly inside Steve's cramped Brooklyn apartment while Steve sorted everything out certainly wasn't Sam's favorite.

But none of that was what Sam meant. What he meant was that there was something wrong with Bucky.

Bucky, having nowhere else to go, was also in Steve's tiny apartment. Since the battle, Sam had seen him maybe five times. He occasionally came out of Steve's room to go to the bathroom, and that was pretty much it. Sam had taken to leaving food outside his door, just to make sure he didn't starve to death, but he wasn't sure how well it was working. Sometimes, Bucky came out to grab the food when Sam wasn't around. Sometimes, he just left it.

Sam was sure he was alive. He sometimes asked him questions through Steve's closed bedroom door, and he usually got responses. But he hadn't know much else about Bucky's physical, mental, or emotional state, and he had figured if there was one thing the Super Soldier needed, it was space.

That is, until Bucky had come out to go to the bathroom again, and Sam had actually gotten a good look at him. There was something wrong, and it was more than just post-battle fatigue or whatever. Bucky clearly hadn't meant to be seen, and for good reason. He was pale and shaky-looking, with sunken eyes and tangled hair. He'd been limping slightly as he walked, and hunched over like every step pained him. Sam had almost stopped him before he'd gone into his room, but at the last second, that had made him too nervous. Instead, he had allowed Bucky to shut the bedroom door tight behind him, and now, Sam wasn't really sure what to do.

Bucky looked injured, pretty badly injured by the way he was walking. It had been three whole days since the battle, and whatever was going on with him must be pretty serious if his Super Soldier mojo hadn't taken care of it by now. On the other hand, Bucky clearly wanted to be left alone, and Sam wasn't exactly in a hurry to piss off the ex-assassin.

Still, Sam couldn't get the glimpse of Bucky's pale, pain-tense face out of his mind. Plus, there was the consideration of how Steve would react if he found his newly-recovered best friend dead in his apartment. Sam really had to check on Bucky. Steeling himself, Sam cautiously approached Steve's bedroom and knocked on the tightly closed door.

"Hey, Bucky? You okay?"

"Fine," Bucky yelled back angrily, after a short pause. "Go away."

Sam could hear the words catching a little, like it was hard for Bucky to get the breath required for the volume he wanted. That only made him more sure that something was wrong.

"I saw you, I know you're hurt. What happened?"

"Nothing," Bucky spat back. "Leave me alone."

Sam was on the point of just opening the door and finding out for himself, but something in the quality of Bucky's voice warned him that it was a very bad idea. It wasn't that Bucky sounded scary, Sam could and had dealt with 'scary' - especially from Bucky - plenty of times. It was that Bucky sounded scared.

Sam couldn't just push his way into the room to check on Bucky. Sam hadn't really thought about Bucky's mental state, aside from the essential piece of knowledge that Bucky was no longer brainwashed and would not try to kill any of the good guys, which he figured was fair considering the situation at the time. But now, he was kicking himself for not realizing earlier that being un-brainwashed was very much not the same thing as being un-traumatized. Barnes had been through a lot, most of it stuff Sam couldn't even conceptualize, but he was pretty sure the man had severe PTSD, at the least. As bizarre as it felt, this was actually something Sam might be able to handle. Bucky was still injured, still needed help, and Sam would have to be a lot more careful about this than he'd initially thought, but he wasn't giving up.

"Okay," Sam told the closed door. "I'm leaving. For now."

There was no answer. Sam retreated to Steve's extra bedroom and scooped up a legal pad that he'd been using as he tried to catch up on the last five years. He ripped off the top few pages (mostly movie and album releases he'd missed) and began a new list: everything he knew about Bucky Barnes.

Sam didn't know all that much about what Bucky had been through with HYDRA. Steve had told him some, Natasha had mentioned a bit more, and he'd seen a couple cuts of SHIELD/HYDRA footage that had turned his stomach. Sam sifted through all of it in his mind, trying to get as good an idea as possible of what he was dealing with.

Part of Sam was aware that he was preparing to spend an awful lot of time and energy on someone he didn't know that well, and possibly even that his own overwhelmed and exhausted brain had read something into Bucky's tone that wasn't there. But assuming he'd heard correctly (and he was pretty sure he had), Sam couldn't just pretend he hadn't.

Sam did a thorough job recording all of the information he knew about Bucky, and then coming up with a game plan as to how to manage it. He figured the most important thing was making sure Bucky didn't get triggered - at least, not to a degree that Sam couldn't manage. That would be dangerous for Bucky - Sam wasn't sure how easily he could bounce back from something like that, he had described himself as only "semi-stable" after all. But it would also be dangerous for Sam. Sam wasn't particularly interested in getting his windpipe crushed by a metal arm.

He figured Bucky's biggest trigger would be the wrong kind of physical sensation. He had been tortured for years, after all. Sam wasn't planning on restricting Bucky in any way, or doing anything to hurt him. Beyond that, he wasn't exactly sure what was going to work and what wouldn't, but he was pretty sure he would be able to tell if he was starting to cross lines.

The other thing that he was pretty confident wouldn't be good for Bucky was a loss of control. Bucky had spent almost the past ten years fighting to get some sort of control back in his life. Granted, he'd been dead for half of it, and asleep for part of it as well, but...still. That was something Bucky had worked hard for, and something Sam didn't intend to undo. Not if he could help it. He resolved to only force Bucky to do something against his will if it was a matter of life or death. And maybe not even then.

Armed with the legal pad of triggers, Sam approached Bucky's closed door again.

"Hey," Sam said to the closed door.

There was no response, but Sam hadn't really expected one.

"I'm a little worried about you," Sam continued. "You didn't look so hot when I last saw you. I think you might be hiding an injury."

There was a long pause, and then a very small "Go away."

"I'm not going to do that this time, Bucky," Sam said. "I can't leave you alone when you're injured."

"Don't come in," Bucky growled. He still sounded scared, but also more vicious than Sam thought he'd ever heard him.

"Okay, okay, I'm not coming in," Sam said. In fact, he realized that he had taken an involuntary step back. "But I am going to make you a deal."

"What is it?" Bucky asked. He already sounded slightly more stable than he had even a second before - god, that man could turn on a dime.

"I need to make sure you're alright, so I'm going to keep hanging out outside your room. I'm not going to leave until I can verify that." Sam had expected the conversation to go about the direction that it had, so he had planned this bit ahead of time. He thought clear, consistent, verbal boundaries might be helpful for Bucky. "But I won't come in. I'll only come in if you invite me, or if you stop responding and I think you might be dead. Is that okay?"
There was a long silence; presumably Bucky was thinking through the terms of the deal.

"Bucky?" Sam said warningly. He hadn't decided exactly how much silence he would tolerate in practice, but he didn't want Bucky thinking he could test him.

"Okay," Bucky said softly.

"Okay," Sam said. "Okay, good. So...I guess the past five years were pretty crazy, huh?"

It had been about thirty minutes since Sam had started talking to Bucky. Obviously, he had been doing most of the talking - Bucky wasn't exactly 'chatty' at the best of times, and he certainly wasn't in this case. Sam, out of sheer desperation for anything relatively safe to discuss, had begun telling college stories. These, at least, seemed to keep something of Bucky's interest, and he'd even asked a question or two through the closed door. Sometimes, Sam even got something that was almost a chuckle.

Currently, Sam was about halfway through the story of the time he and his ROTC friends snuck into the officer's club, and had gotten caught up in the memory despite himself.

"So then Perry turns to the bartender, and remember we're trying not to get noticed here, and this guy has the balls to order ten fucking shots-"

Sam broke off, Steve's disapproving expression floating before his eyes. "Oops. Sorry, I keep forgetting you guys used different language in the '40s. Ten shots."

There was a very exasperated sigh from the other side of the door. "We did not," Bucky said, sounding offended. "I was in the fucking army, we swore all the time. It was just Steve."

Sam choked on his own breath. "Sorry, it's-"

"Just a Steve thing," Bucky finished. "God, he's a great guy, but if I had a nickel for every time I heard the phrase 'pardon your French' I'd be rich."

Sam decided that he needed a minute. He was about half a second from texting every Avenger he knew, then remembered that Natasha would have found it the funniest, and Natasha was dead. After that, he needed a minute for a different reason. Bucky seemed content with the silence, and Sam figured he wouldn't mind the respite.

After a few minutes, Bucky cleared his throat very quietly. "Umm…what happened?"

"What happened when?" Sam asked, still a little distant.

"With the club," Bucky said softly. "Did...did you get caught?"

"Oh. Oh." Sam hadn't really thought Bucky was listening. Shaking himself, he pulled his thoughts back to that night, smiling a little. "Course we got caught. The best part is how, though…."

Things had been going great. Now, they were not. Sam had been prepared for this, he knew better than most how you could feel fine one second and be falling apart the next. Over the past twenty minutes or so, Bucky's responses had been getting scarcer, and he was sounding quieter and more unsure. Sam wasn't sure if he was in pain, beginning to get frightened by Sam's presence, or just overwhelmed by the sheer volume of social interaction, but he thought it actually might be best for him to step away for a moment.

"Hey, Bucky?"

"Yeah?" Bucky's voice was almost a whisper, flat and distracted-sounding. Sam winced a little.

"I'm gonna clean up the living room for a little bit, okay? I'm not leaving, and I still want you to tell me if you decide you want me to come in, or if you want...water, or something. I'm just gonna be one room over."

"Okay," he said softly.

"I can still hear you. And you'll be able to hear me. I am not leaving, alright?"

"Alright."

Sam turned away from the door, and walked down the short hallway to Steve's living room, which shared a back wall with the room Bucky was in. It wasn't very messy. Sam had been hoping there would be...trash everywhere, or something like that, but they honestly hadn't been there very long, and Sam had been spending a lot of time in his room. Bucky sure hadn't made a mess. The type of cleaning that needed to be done was more along the lines of folding blankets, dusting shelves. Things Sam didn't really feel equipped to do in another person's home, not to mention things he didn't really want to do.

There were a few pillows on the floor. Sam picked those up and set them on the sofa, then started worrying that that just moving pillows around wasn't going to make enough noise, and Bucky was going to think he had left. In the end, Sam not leaving was just as important as Bucky responding to his questions - they had both agreed on the terms of the deal, and it was important to stick to that.

Sam kicked the wall. Lightly, but it still made a sound he was sure Bucky could hear. He decided to mix walking around the living room with the occasional kick to something he was sure wouldn't break. Maybe he could even add in some occasional cleaning.

"You okay?" Sam yelled after about a half an hour. The living room was looking marginally better in some ways, although it mostly looked exactly the same as before.

"Yeah," Bucky said. He still sounded weak and quiet, but his voice didn't sound half-gone in the way it had before. "Okay."

"You in a lot of pain still?"

There was a long pause. "I don't think I'm obligated to talk about that," Bucky finally said.

Sam chuckled. "I suppose that's fair, I suppose that's fair." He went back to "cleaning" the living room for a few more minutes - Bucky didn't sound fine, by any means, but it seemed like the break from constant responses was doing him good.

Once he thought a sufficient amount of time had gone by, he made his way back to Bucky's door. "I'm getting kind of hungry," he said. "Would you want anything to eat?"

"No."

"You sure?" Sam asked. "I bet I can make something, even with Steve's weird canned food addiction…. Or I could order out? We haven't had a real meal in five years, if you think about it."

"No."

"Okay, okay - I'll just get something you wouldn't like anyway, then. Maybe sushi…. I could get a miso soup, if you ended up being hungry-"

"I like sushi."

Sam stopped mid-sentence. He had tried to get Steve to eat sushi once. He'd categorically refused, on the grounds that humans weren't supposed to eat raw fish, and he thought it might have 'too many flavors.'

"Sorry, you...like sushi? When did you even try sushi?"

Sam couldn't hear Bucky shrug, but he imagined it. "Around. I was on my own for a while, after…."

He didn't finish the sentence. Sam didn't press - he knew what Bucky meant. After Hydra.

"You're telling me that you tried raw fish. On purpose. And you like it?"

"Problem with that?" Bucky mumbled, suddenly sounding defensive. Sam shook his head, even though Bucky couldn't see him. For a moment, he'd forgotten that he was talking to a formerly brainwashed ex-assassin through a tightly closed door, and he'd just...been having a conversation. A surprisingly normal, engaging conversation.

"No problem," Sam told him. "It's just...actually kinda cool, is all."

Bucky made a small 'oh' sound, one Sam thought sounded almost pleased. "I'm still not hungry though."

"Okay, okay," Sam said to the door. "Let me know if you change your mind."

"Mm," Bucky answered, sounding flat and entirely unconvincing.

"Cause I'm gonna keep asking."

"I know."

Sam got Bucky a sushi roll anyway, as well as an order of miso soup. He put them both in the refrigerator, hoping the supersoldier would decide that he was hungry after all.

Bucky hadn't been talking much since the sushi came. He'd refused Sam's second offer of food, and since then, his responses had been trending towards the monosyllabic. Sam wasn't sure if Bucky was tiring of the communication, or if he was getting weaker, but he was getting more and more concerned.

"You doing okay in there?" Sam asked worriedly.

"Yeah," Bucky whispered.

"You've gotten awfully quiet," Sam said.

"Maybe." Sam couldn't tell if he'd misunderstood the question, or if he was just trying to be a bitch.

"Are you trying to be a bitch?" Sam figured it couldn't hurt to ask.

"Maybe."

Sam wondered, not for the first time, why he was doing this. Bucky was Steve's best friend, and Sam cared very much for Steve, and he knew that was part of it. Steve had been through a lot these past five years, more than Sam could really imagine. Sam wasn't going to allow him to come home only to find Bucky dead in his apartment.

But that wasn't the whole picture, and Sam knew it. He had only interacted with Bucky a handful of times, but he had...seen something in the soldier. He understood why Steve had stood by him all those years, at least a little. He was funny, he was smart, and even taking all the PTSD and trauma out of the equation, there was this sort of naked vulnerability that Sam couldn't help but be….

God, what was Sam thinking? If Sam entered the room, Bucky was just as likely to murder him with the metal arm as he was to allow Sam to help, and here Sam was with a laundry list of his positive attributions.

Sam supposed that was also part of it. Bucky was still wildly unstable, and helping him without breaking him was not the sort of task just anyone would be up for. Steve wouldn't be able to do it, as much as he would be trying to help. But he still had an image of Bucky in the 30s in his mind, and there was no way for him to really understand that while his best friend was still his best friend, he was also a man who had undergone deep and irreversible physiological trauma. He was a different person now.

But Sam could help, and so he thought that he should. And he intended to.

"You still with me?" Sam asked.

This time, all he got was an annoyed sounding hum.

"Hey," Sam said. "I don't think that counts as a response."

"Sorry," Bucky whispered, so softly Sam wasn't really sure he'd heard it.

Sam felt his blood run cold. He was pretty sure he would be entering Bucky's room in the next minute or two, and he didn't have a plan. He'd assumed he'd have more information about what was going on with Bucky by this point. Honestly, he'd assumed Bucky would eventually invite him in. But he hadn't yet, and by the sound of things, he was fading fast.

"Bucky?" Sam tried again, unsure what he was even going to say if Bucky answered. As it turned out, he hadn't needed to worry about that. Bucky didn't answer.

"Hey man, remember the deal," Sam prompted the closed door. "If you don't answer, I'm gonna need to come in and make sure you're not dead, or passed out."

He really expected this to elicit a response, at least some kind of mumble, or movement, or something. Silence. Sam started to worry that Bucky really had passed out. He also started to worry that Bucky had simply fallen asleep, and when Sam came in he would wake up, panic, and possibly murder him.

Sam knocked on the door. "Last chance, Bucky. You okay? If you don't answer, I'm opening the door."

Still nothing. Sam swallowed softly, heart rate speeding up. "Alright. I'm coming in, okay?"

Cautiously, Sam twisted the doorknob and pushed the door open, expecting to see Bucky's (possibly lifeless) body sprawled on the bed (or maybe the floor). A tiny part of him tensed, preparing for the eventuality of a supersoldier hitting him in the face with a metal fist.

He had not prepared for Bucky lying curled on the bed, awake and watching Sam as he opened the door. His eyes, although dull and slightly glazed-looking, were aware, and Sam knew Bucky must have heard him knocking. Bucky had invited him in after all, simply by staying silent.