Bucky grabbed the first aid kit from the bathroom, staring at the hydrogen peroxide. Sam had said not to use that anymore, right? Ordinarily, Bucky would have said tough titties to that and used whatever the hell he wanted on a wound, but...but it was Sam. As upset as Bucky had been about the date just a few minutes before, as soon as he'd realized Sam was in danger, his instincts had kicked in and his training had taken over.

This time was different, though. On missions, Bucky was laser-focused to (and sometimes past) the point of ruthless. If an ally was injured, Bucky knew a bit of basic field medicine, enough to get them stable and get them out. People's comfort didn't really occur to him, not until the mission was done and the danger was past.

But Sam was in his head, his eyes dark with pain that he was trying not to show, telling Bucky not to use hydrogen peroxide. And even though he wasn't entirely sure why, Bucky listened. He wasted almost a minute combing through the house for something else that he knew would work as a disinfectant before returning to Sam as fast as he could.

Sam's eyes were closed when Bucky returned, still lying flat on his back. His right hand was still clamping Bucky's shirt over his left shoulder, but his long fingers were relaxed, and Bucky thought he might be unconscious.

"Hey, Sam, you with me?" Bucky asked anxiously, kneeling beside him again. Blood soaked into the knees of Bucky's jeans, but Bucky ignored the feeling. It wasn't the first time.

Sam groaned softly, his lashes fluttering against the dark hollows that were forming beneath his eyes. "Bucky. Yeah."

Bucky felt a surge of admiration for Sam, still conscious and present despite everything. He was one tough son of a bitch, one of the many reasons Bucky-

"You said not to use hydrogen peroxide," Bucky said hurriedly, cutting himself off mid thought. "I brought-"

Sam groaned again. "Not my bourbon."

Bucky frowned, looking down at the bottle in his hand. In the war, they'd used alcohol to clean out wounds plenty.

"How'd you know?" he asked, aware that he was letting Sam distract him from the mission at hand and unsure why he was allowing it to happen. "Your eyes aren't even open."

"I know you, Buck," Sam mumbled, his words starting to slur around the edges.

Out of nowhere, Bucky felt the anger come back. Sam had no right to "know him" so well, and still be seeing people named Lillian, and getting himself hurt so badly.

"Fine," Bucky said, maybe a bit more snappily than he'd meant to. "What am I supposed to use, then?"

"Disinfectant in the kit," Sam whispered. "'S labeled. 'Disinfectant.'"

"Oh, fuck off," Bucky grumbled, opening the kit and instantly finding the bottle Sam was describing. One corner of Sam's mouth twitched, and Bucky glared at it. Of course Sam was still funny even when he was bleeding out on the floor of his apartment and scaring Bucky half to death.

This disinfectant was milder than both Hydrogen Peroxide and bourbon, according to the bottle, which Bucky thought was a little ridiculous. Sam had laid on the ground outside, and who the hell knew what was in the wound now? But Sam had said this is what Bucky should use, so this is what Bucky would use. He poured a healthy measure over Sam's shoulder, and watched as red-tinged liquid slowly spread across the floor. He wished he had some running water - that really was one of the most effective and gentlest ways Bucky had found to clean out wounds. But he was only going to try to move Sam once, and it certainly wasn't going to be to the shower.

The first-aid kit had gauze. Bucky balled up some of the gauze and pressed it over Sam's wound. The bleeding really was slowing - Bucky thought there was still a fair chance Sam may end up needing a hospital, but at least he wasn't about to bleed out on the floor of his own apartment. Once the gauze was in place, he used medical tape to apply a gauze pad over the whole thing. It really looked pretty good, in Bucy's opinion. Much more manageable. Now he just needed to do something about the horrible paleness of Sam's face, the glassy, far away look in his eyes….

And of course, the exit wound.

"I'll need to turn you to the side," Bucky said.

Sam didn't respond, and Bucky felt his blood run cold.

"Sam?" he said. Bucky thought his voice might sound a little scared, and he really didn't care for that at all. "You...you with me?"

Sam's eyes slowly tracked back to focus on Bucky, and he nodded slightly. "Yeah," he whispered.

Bucky swallowed hard - he could address the shock or the blood loss or whatever this was once he'd dressed the exit wound. He slowly rolled Sam onto his side, ignoring Sam's sharp gasp of pain. He worked as quickly as he could, bandaging Sam's back the same way he had bandaged his front. Then he lowered Sam back down, trying to arrange him so as to put the least amount of pressure on the wound as possible. Sam, to his credit, didn't cry out, although Bucky knew it must have hurt.

Bucky's hands were covered in Sam's blood. Bucky didn't like that at all.

He wanted them to be covered in the blood of the person who had done this to Sam.

Sam was trying very hard not to focus on the pain, but it wasn't really working. Every breath made the inside of his chest kind of grind together, and he really didn't care for that shit. He wished he could just pass out already. The only reason he was trying not to was because he knew it would scare Bucky.

"I'm going to move you somewhere more comfortable," Bucky said. "Sofa's closer, but the bed-"

"Bed," Sam said firmly, and then was immediately grateful that he didn't have enough blood left to blush. He'd just thought the bed sounded more comfortable, but it had come across like….

Bucky, however, didn't seem to notice. Sam was simultaneously relieved and incensed about that fact - a part of him wanted Bucky to be just as flustered as he was.

"Okay," Bucky said simply, heaving him upright. Sam choked off a gasp of pain as Bucky pulled him close, looping Sam's uninjured arm across Bucky's shoulders. Bucky's vibranium arm snaked around his waist, keeping him standing and far, far closer than he'd bargained for.

Sam breathed through the dizziness, figuring the head rush had been caused by the sudden movement, rather than any sort of proximity to Bucky. Still, even through the haze of the bullet wound, Sam was becoming increasingly aware that when Bucky had dressed his injury, he'd removed Sam's shirt as well as his own.

Bucky readjusted Sam's arm over his shoulders and took a few careful steps. Sam knew that the Super Soldier didn't have to be going nearly that slowly, it was likely purely for Sam's comfort.

This, too, was a new side of Bucky. Sam was far more familiar with the Bucky who would rearrange his pictures just to annoy him, the Bucky who would eat all the food in the refrigerator and never think to buy new, the Bucky who never seemed to remember that just because he could go thirty-six hours without sleep did not mean that Sam could. Sam had seen Bucky's capacity for compassion in the past, but it was enough of a rarity that it never failed to touch Sam deeply.

As if reading his mind, Bucky paused. "You good?" he asked, and the vibranium arm pulled Sam in even closer than before. Sam shuddered, feeling his waist pressed against Bucky's, every muscle in Bucky's side as he moved against him.

Bucky took another few steps, holding Sam tightly, and Sam felt metal fingers brush lightly against his hipbone.

"Are you in pain?" Bucky demanded, and now his hand was definitely on Sam's hip.

"Yeah," Sam managed in a sort of hollow gasp. It certainly, certainly wasn't a lie. Sam was in more pain now than he'd been in for a very long time. With every agonizing step, the bullet wound in his shoulder seemed to send a red hot poker through him.

Once upon a time, Sam might have truly allowed himself to be distracted by his proximity to Bucky, the feeling of Bucky's body against his. But now...Sam couldn't help some of his reactions, but it didn't feel the same. Sam had really thought they were headed somewhere, but...Sam wondered if he should feel guilty letting Bucky touch him like this knowing Bucky didn't feel the same.

For what had to be the hundredth time that week alone, Bucky decided that he was, in fact, a horrible person. Sam - his teammate, his friend, his unwilling and unofficial roommate - had been shot, pretty badly, and all that Bucky could think about was Sam's goddamn body pressed up against his own. This felt like a new low, even for him.

It seemed to take a thousand years, but they made it into Sam's room without Sam collapsing. There was a moment where Bucky wasn't sure if Sam would be able to get into his bed on his own, and he had an image of scooping him up and laying him carefully down. He decided against that, even though it took some willpower. He just couldn't think of another time he'd been so desperate to make another person feel better, to take some of the burden off of them, and there wasn't much else he could do.

But Sam did manage to get in bed on his own, looking weak and unsteady but nothing if not determined. He arranged himself against the pillows, and Bucky felt his heart jump into his throat when he saw how pale Sam was.

"I'm getting blood on the sheets," Sam whispered.

"We'll wash them," Bucky said. "Bloodstains come out."

"How do you know that?"

Did Sam want him to describe each time he'd needed to remove a bloodstain? "I-"

"Just kidding," Sam said with a weak chuckle. Bucky wondered if he was starting to get a little bit delirious. "Do you even know how to use a laundry machine?"

"Been living on my own for almost a year, Samuel. Course I know how to do laundry."

Sam smiled a little, and then winced. He shifted slightly on the bed, but then seemed to realize that no position was actually going to be comfortable with a bullet wound in his shoulder.

"Can I get you anything?" The nervous energy that had been starting to consume Bucky ever since Sam had shown up was reaching a breaking point. His whole body felt wound tense - he didn't think he could have sat down if he'd tried. "Water? Are you...are you hungry? Medication, maybe? Is there someone I can call? I bet SHIELD would-"

"Talk quieter," Sam said. "May...may try to sleep."

Bucky couldn't stand still anymore - the adrenaline was making that unbearable. He started to pace back and forth across Sam's room, wishing there was something available that he could punch.

"I don't know if you're supposed to fall asleep," Bucky said. Was that a rule with bullet wounds? He knew it was certainly a rule with concussions. "You may...I mean, something may happen."

Bucky paused his pacing to look outside the window. Nothing there yet - good. He resumed his pacing.

After a moment, Sam coughed weakly. Bucky looked back at the bed to find Sam looking vaguely ill. "Can you...can you stop that? You're makin' me sick."

Bucky stopped pacing abruptly, feeling his hand clench into a fist despite himself. "What the hell am I supposed to be doing, then?" he growled. He knew he was over the line, and he wasn't sure why he was taking his adrenaline rush out on Sam, but he couldn't help it.

Sam sighed softly and closed his eyes, seeming suddenly exhausted. "I dunno, Buck. Anything else."

Bucky felt guilt tangling in the pit of his stomach, and he crossed his arms. "Fine," he said, trying his absolute hardest to keep anger out of his tone. "Let's talk about your date, then."

Bucky froze. He...he hadn't actually known that he was going to say that until it was out of his mouth. He looked up, on the edge of taking it back, when he saw Sam's face. Sam looked absolutely blindsided, lips slightly parted as he stared at Bucky.

Fuck that. Did Sam think Bucky wouldn't find out? Did he think that if Bucky did find out, that he wouldn't care? Did he just intend to actively keep it from him? Or possibly even worse, had Sam simply not expected him to care at all?

Bucky tried to remind himself, once again, that he wasn't dating Sam. Still, he had been flirting with him, and in Bucky's 1930s rulebook, he'd been all but throwing himself at Sam's feet. Sam hadn't even asked him out before going on a date with this Lillian, and Bucky was perfectly within his rights to cross-examine the man.

Bucky cleared his throat, praying that the next words out of his mouth sounded halfway normal. "So...how was it? Really?"

Sam blinked at him a little more, as though he still couldn't quite believe that Bucky had the gall to be asking him these sorts of things. That was fine. Bucky couldn't believe Sam had the gall to be going on dates with Lillians.

"It was fine," Sam said, a little shortly. As if he had any right to be annoyed. "Pretty good, actually."

"Hmm. Was she pretty?" Bucky asked, still managing to maintain some semblance of normality.

"Uhh, yeah, she was," Sam replied. He shifted, hissing in pain as his shoulder protested, then frowned. Was it Bucky's imagination, or did he sound a little defensive? "A friend of a friend set us up."

"Oh," Bucky said, his voice sounding hollow, even to him. "So you were looking. To be set up with someone. Well, she sounds...nice."

Sam's eyes narrowed. "I wasn't looking. Not exactly. It just kinda...happened."

Bucky felt bones in his hand grind as he closed it into a fist. After working for months to remember the first thing about romance and...and feelings and relationships and not being an asshole, Lillian had "just kinda happened." Fine. Now that he knew that, he'd just stop trying so hard.

"Great," Bucky snapped. "Sounds...fun. Natural. You know, in the thirties, if a friend set you up with someone it meant she was either ugly or easy."

Sam's eyes widened, and he looked so taken aback that Bucky almost felt bad for a moment. At the very least, he felt uncomfortable enough to back down slightly.

"I guess times were different then," he muttered. "Umm, how was dinner?"

Sam blinked, apparently somewhat blindsided over the rapid change in mood.

"It was...good. We went to Fratelli's."

"I know that," Bucky ground out.

"How did you even find out about the date?" Sam protested softly. He was getting weaker, Bucky could tell. But Bucky thought a good old-fashioned fight about a girl would probably keep him awake as well as anything else.

"Note on your refrigerator," Bucky said, somewhat defensively. He wasn't sure how embarrassed he should be about the fact that he had broken into Sam's house.

Sam sighed. He settled deeper into the pillows. His eyes were still alert and a little mean-looking, but Bucky could tell he was getting sleepy. He looked cute when he was getting sleepy, even under circumstances such as these. He looked cute all the time. He looked….

Bucky didn't think he'd ever been so head-over-heels for someone in his life. Why did that keep coming out as hostility?

"Are you going out with her again?" Bucky asked. This was the real question, the one that he hadn't wanted to ask. But he supposed it would be best to just rip the answer off like a bandaid. Bucky told himself that no matter what Sam said, he would react calmly. He would react like Sam's friend.

"I dunno," Sam said. "Probably. She was fun. I mean-"

Anger and hurt crashed over Bucky like a wave. He was pacing again - he couldn't have stopped if he'd wanted to. His emotions were running too high, impossibly high, and he needed them out. He wanted to rip someone apart, but he wasn't sure if it was Sam or the person who had shot Sam or Lillian. Maybe it was himself. He wanted to tear himself inside out, in the hopes that maybe that would feel less something.

"You taking her out to eat again?" Bucky snarled.

"You and I don't have a monopoly on restaurants, Buck," Sam said mildly.

How could he say anything mildly? Bucky wanted to punch a wall.

"Are you getting sushi with her?"

"Probably not," Sam said, his voice soft and a little shaky. "'Cause that went so well last time."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

To Bucky's surprise, this seemed to get Sam a little angry. "I'm not a masochist, Bucky, despite what you apparently think."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Bucky growled.

"I mean, when I asked you on a date, you turned me down for sushi. Not exactly looking to be reminded of that."

Bucky froze. "That...was that supposed to be a...a date?" Bucky remembered Sam suggesting they grab dinner out. In fact, he'd suggested Fratelli's. But Bucky was having a bad day, he wanted sushi, and they'd gotten food after missions plenty of times. How the hell was he supposed to know that "dinner" meant "date?"

Bucky looked back at Sam, and all of a sudden the anger and hurt in his eyes made sense, and Bucky felt like screaming. He'd had his chance, and he'd missed it.

"I...I didn't know it was a date," Bucky said softly. His pacing had brought him awfully close to Sam, close enough that if Bucky wanted to, he could reach out and touch him. And he did want to, but…. Bucky stayed where he was.

Sam's eyes widened. "Oh," he whispered.