Dealing with both Bucky's physical state and mental state simultaneously was too big of an ask, so Sam decided to stop talking to him for a few minutes and just focus on getting the wounds bandaged. Steve had a little antibiotic cream, which Sam carefully dabbed onto the angry red wounds. He wasn't really sure that it would help at this point - the infection had probably progressed beyond what could be effectively treated with cream, and if Bucky couldn't go to the hospital, it was up to his super soldier body to fight the infection off. But it seemed better than nothing, and nothing was currently Sam's only other option.
Once Sam had applied the antibiotic cream, he carefully dressed the wounds as best he could, applying gauze pads to the deepest areas like the cut over Bucky's hip, and smaller dressings to some of the shallower wounds. Sam had been hoping the wounds would look a lot more manageable when everything was neatly covered by gauze, but that didn't really happen. The injured area was too large for all Bucky's cuts to be fully hidden, and there was of course still the fact that Bucky's eyes were glassy and his cheeks were flushed with fever.
Sam wasn't even about to attempt to take Bucky's temperature with the thermometer again - he thought the more out of it Bucky was, the worse that sort of invasion might go.
"I'm going to put my hand on your forehead," Sam said. "To take your temperature."
Bucky didn't respond, but Sam figured there wasn't much he could do aside from inform Bucky what was going to happen. Sam brushed Bucky's hair off of his face, and then laid the back of his hand against Bucky's forehead.
Sam expected Bucky to flinch, and half-expected him to try to choke Sam out. But neither of those things happened. Bucky remained still and docile-looking, but his eyes refocused slightly and landed on Sam.
"Hey," Sam said, a little confused. "You with me?"
"Feels nice," Bucky murmured, his voice hardly above a whisper.
"What, my hand?"
"'S cold," Bucky mumbled, eyes drifting slightly out of focus again.
"Oh, okay," Sam said, somewhat nonplussed. Out of everything he'd mentally prepared for, Bucky actually relaxing a little was not one of them. A little self-consciously, Sam took his hand back, turning it so the cooler pads of his fingers were against Bucky's skin.
Bucky made a soft, low sound that almost sounded happy, and Sam thought he could feel Bucky lose maybe a fraction of a fraction of tension as Sam laid his hand on Bucky's forehead. Sam let his hand stay there for a minute or two, until the heat from Bucky's skin equalized the temperature and Sam realized that he was just touching Bucky's head for no reason. A little quicker than he meant to, he pulled his hand back, and Bucky's eyes flickered towards him.
Bucky still seemed a little out of focus, but Sam wasn't sure if he was still having trouble staying present, or if it was just the fever kicking in, or some combination of the two. He figured he might as well try his luck - if Bucky didn't respond, so be it.
"Any better?"
Bucky shrugged the metal shoulder a little, which Sam took to mean both "yes" and "thank you."
"Good," Sam said, sticking his hands in his pockets. He wasn't...entirely sure what to do now. He'd already put Bucky through a lot just by being in the room, and then he'd just spent almost twenty minutes causing him pain. He thought it was likely that the Super Soldier could use a break, but at the same time, he didn't want to leave Bucky until he was sure he was doing alright.
Bucky surprised him - once again - by clearing his throat. "Could...could you hand me the glass of water?"
Blue eyes snapped into focus and narrowed at Sam once again, as if Bucky thought Sam might laugh at him for asking. Sam had no intention of laughing (he wouldn't have laughed even if Bucky hadn't looked murderous). But he also wasn't sure that water was the best thing for Bucky right now.
"You feel okay to drink something?" Sam asked, trying not to sound doubtful.
Bucky nodded, still glaring.
"How do you feel about...popsicles?" Sam asked. When he was a kid, that's what his mom had given him if he was sick enough he'd struggled with eating. When he'd gotten older, he'd realized that the popsicle rehydrated him better because of the sugars, but at the time he'd just been excited to get a freezer pop. Steve had done a round of groceries-by-request a day or so ago, and although being dead for five years wasn't quite the same as being sick, Sam still thought he deserved popsicles, so there were some in the freezer.
"Wait, do you know what a popsicle is?" Sam asked quickly, suddenly realizing that although popsicles seemed like something that had been around since the dawn of time to him, they might very well be new to Bucky.
"Course," Bucky mumbled, although Sam thought the glare had lost some of its power. "What idiot doesn't know about popsicles?"
"They had them when you were a kid?"
Bucky shot Sam a disgusted look that Sam decided to interpret as a yes.
"Whatever," Sam said. He left the room to get a popsicle from the freezer. Sam debated getting a second popsicle for himself - they did look awfully good. But he decided that trying to deal with sick Bucky while only having one free hand simply seemed like too much to ask of him.
Bucky was still awake when Sam arrived back in the room, although he was looking awfully tired.
"You know, you can fall asleep if you want," Sam said. "Instead of eating this."
Bucky gave Sam another disgusted look, and managed to straighten himself up slightly. Sam unwrapped the popsicle, and Bucky took it with his metal hand, eyeing it warily before taking a tentative bite.
"Does it taste just how you remember?" Sam asked.
Bucky shook his head slightly. "Sweeter."
Sam supposed that made sense - he wasn't sure exactly what was used as a sweetener way back in the 30s, but he was sure it wasn't the fifteen different chemicals and sugars that were used now.
Bucky finished his popsicle in silence. Sam was having a hard time getting a read on him, and wasn't sure if he should be trying to talk to him or not. One second, Bucky was soft and unguarded, and the next, he was barbed and almost cruel. He could go from bantering with Sam to flinching away from him in the blink of an eye. It was confusing to the point of being overwhelming, and Sam wasn't sure that he was doing a good job.
By the time Bucky finished his popsicle, he was actively falling asleep. His eyes kept closing, and then his head would droop to his chest for a moment before he would snap awake, eyes darting around in fear.
"Give me that," Sam said, gesturing at the popsicle stick. Bucky hesitated, and Sam thought he might just be reacting to Sam's tone of voice - he tried very hard to soften it. "You need some sleep. Hand me that, and I'll leave you alone for a bit so you can rest."
Bucky handed him the popsicle stick. On one hand, these past hours had given Sam the best sense he'd ever had of what Steve actually saw in the guy, but on the other hand...man, he was so damn quiet. Sam figured he had a good reason to be, but still - Sam always felt like he was on the edge of saying or doing something very wrong.
"Holler if you need anything," Sam told him, and Bucky's eyes drooped lower as he nodded. He began slowly settling himself back down into a more comfortable position, and Sam figured that was his cue to leave.
He was at the door when Bucky coughed quietly. "Umm...Thanks. For...for the popsicle."
Sam...had not expected that. He'd taken Bucky not murdering him as thanks enough, and had been comfortable with the fact that was probably all he was going to get. He certainly hadn't expected something in words, albeit words whispered so quietly he could barely hear them, and he knew Bucky meant 'thanks' for more than the popsicle.
"Anytime, man," Sam said, turning back towards Bucky. The ex-assassin managed a second of eye contact, then looked away.
"Now get out so I can sleep," Bucky mumbled, exhaustion blurring the edges of his words. If he'd meant them to be threatening, or even just plain bitchy, Sam hadn't taken them that way.
"Fair enough," Sam responded, unable to hold back a tinge of amusement in his tone. Steve had said he was funny, but Sam had honestly just thought that Steve didn't have any sense of what funny was. But he was starting to see it, even now, after everything.
Sam exited Bucky's room, closing the door gently behind him. Leaning against the wall, he let out a sigh, feeling the past few hours of tension slowly drain away. He'd made it through without being punched, and hopefully without shaking Bucky's fragile mental state too badly. It had been exhausting, but he thought he'd helped.
Sam had expected to feel relief, but he mostly was still worried about Bucky. Somewhere along the way, Bucky had become less of a task that Sam had to complete because it was the right thing to do, and more of…. Sam hesitated to use the word "friend" with a semi-psychotic ex-supervillain that had tried to kill him only two (seven) years ago, but he was at least more than Steve's weird best friend. It had been nerve-wracking and maddening and a little bit scary trying to take care of Bucky, but Sam would be lying if he said that it wasn't rewarding too. And hopefully, they were through the worst of it. Bucky's Super Soldier serum would be able to fight off the infection, and he'd be back to his antisocial, glaring self in no time.
Except that's not what happened. By the time about a day had gone by since Sam had first started treating Bucky, it was clear that Bucky was not getting better. In fact, he was getting worse. Sam was checking his temperature every few hours, and it was steadily on the rise. Not that he had been talkative before, but it was starting to get difficult to even get him to react. He spent most of his time just staring up at Sam with dull, empty eyes.
Sam knew he had promised Bucky he wouldn't take him to a hospital. And that was starting to...it was starting to become difficult. Bucky didn't need some antibiotic cream and a good friend. He needed a real doctor and an IV full of heavy drugs. Sam didn't want to do irreparable damage to Bucky's mental state, but he also didn't want to watch him die.
At one point, just over twenty-four hours since this whole mess had started, Sam was in the kitchen trying to see if they had anything Bucky's stomach might be able to handle when he heard something strange from the bedroom. It took him a second to place what the sound was - he was unfamiliar with the way all of Bucky's different emotional states might sound. But then he realized Bucky was crying out, and it took him about two seconds flat to be in front of the bedroom door.
"I'm coming in!" Sam called from outside the room - whatever was happening to Bucky, Sam did not intend to make it worse by sneaking up on him. Then he opened the door.
Bucky was curled on his side in the bed, whimpering slightly. At first, Sam thought he was in pain, but then realized his eyes were closed. Nightmare then.
Sam almost reached out to shake his shoulder, but then realized that with Bucky like this, that might be a very, very bad idea.
"Buck?" Sam said. "You need to wake up."
No reaction to Sam's words, but a few seconds later, Bucky's face twisted in sudden pain. He cried out softly, breath hitching in his throat.
"Bucky!" Sam practically yelled. Still no response.
Sam didn't dare actually touch Bucky, but he did nudge the bed beneath him, hoping to jostle him awake. This, finally, seemed to work. Bucky's breathing caught in his chest, but then he settled down against the bed and his eyes slitted open.
Then he seemed to register Sam's presence, and he tensed up again, albeit very weakly.
"Don't touch me," he hissed.
"I won't," Sam promised soothingly. "It's okay, it's just me."
Bucky didn't relax, curling tighter against himself as his eyes flitted around the room. He shifted, whimpering in pain as the movement pulled at the nasty wounds in his side.
"What-what happened?" Bucky whispered weakly, angling his head and staring down at his bandage-covered chest. "Where am I?"
"Steve's apartment," Sam told him. "You got a bit hurt, in the fight with Thanos-"
"Where am I?" Bucky repeated desperately, glazed eyes locking onto Sam's and sliding off again. Sam thought Bucky recognized that there was someone else in the room, and might even remember that Sam meant him no harm, but part of him still seemed trapped in the nightmare.
"You're alright," Sam repeated. "You're okay."
"Not safe," Bucky murmured, his eyes sliding closed and flying open again in dull terror. "Not...they're looking…."
This...this was hard to watch. Sam had empathized with Bucky's sensitivity to touch, his struggle to trust Sam, his aversion to hospitals, even his lightning-quick mood swings. They'd all been painful in their own way, but watching Bucky lose his grip on reality was heartbreaking. The naked fear in Bucky's eyes was new, and all Sam wanted to do was wake him up.
"Are they close?" Bucky asked, eyes falling shut again. Sam was shocked and honored to realize that somehow, in this state, Bucky seemed to have decided that Sam was to be trusted (even if he wasn't entirely sure who he was).
"No," Sam said quietly. He didn't know what nightmare memory Bucky was trapped in, and he didn't think he wanted to. All he could do now was try to make Bucky feel safe.
"Always close," Bucky whispered. He tried to move again, moaning in pain.
"Hey, no, stay still," Sam told him. Every fiber of his being ached to put a gentle hand on Bucky's shoulder, but he knew how bad of an idea that would be right now. He stayed where he was, watching helplessly as Bucky mumbled nonsense to himself.
Eventually, Bucky seemed to fall back asleep. He seemed restless, but he was no longer making any noise, and Sam hoped desperately that meant that he wasn't dreaming.
After that, Sam didn't really feel comfortable leaving. He perched on a chair pulled well away from the bed, so worried that he barely even felt weird about watching Bucky sleep. Frantically, he tried to think of a solution to this that wouldn't involve knocking Bucky out, dragging him to a hospital, and breaking his fragile trust in people once again. Was there someone - anyone - he could call, someone who wouldn't immediately call an ambulance?
Steve was out of the question. Steve would force Bucky to go to the hospital. Steve wanted to still have his best friend, and so he was constantly underestimating the damage that Bucky had taken as the Winter Soldier. He saw this Bucky as the same as the one he knew from the 30s, but with a few added...quirks. And, from Sam's understanding, that was simply not true. Bucky had been written over so many times as the Winter Soldier that the man in front of him was simply not the same as the one Steve had known, even if he wasn't the Winter Soldier either. The damage he had experienced was very real. And based on Bucky's reactions to Sam so far, Sam had no doubt that he was by no means overselling his fear of hospitals. Steve simply wouldn't be able to understand.
And everything else aside, Sam and Bucky had barely seen Steve in the week since they'd been brought back to life - he'd been to the apartment maybe four times. Sam wasn't even entirely sure he'd be able to get ahold of him. He just...clearly wasn't the right person to ask.
Bucky shifted and groaned in his sleep, sucking in a sharp breath when the movement jostled his injured side. Sam was surprised the pain didn't wake him up. He was really not doing well - his fever must be skyrocketing. If Sam needed someone who wasn't going to force Bucky into an ambulance, he didn't just need someone else to bounce ideas off of. He needed someone who was going to be able to provide actual, legitimate medical care, someone who was going to be able to help Bucky without making him leave.
Shuri. Shuri would be perfect. There was no one who understood what Bucky had been through like the Wakandans. Shuri had been inside his head, for god sakes. There was no one who understood the damage the Winter Soldier had taken like Shuri, and he didn't think she would dare force Bucky to do anything that seemed beyond what he could handle.
Not to mention, she was brilliant. Sam didn't know exactly what she knew about medicine, but he was sure that it was something. She could probably set up some IV that...magically cured Bucky, or turn his metal arm into an antibiotic, or...or something.
Sam was close to whipping out his phone to call her when he realized that she probably wouldn't answer. She and T'challa had been nearly as busy as Steve these past few days, trying to run interference with the government while also starting the process of reorganizing after 50% of the world's population had suddenly come back to life. Sam had seen her several times on the news, always looking poised but tired.
Damnit. Maybe Sam could call her if he really thought it might be the only thing that would save Bucky, but she wasn't as good of an option as he had thought.
Sam spent the next few hours wracking his brain, trying to come up with a solution. It wasn't working. He was just going in circles, and he'd recently become aware of the fact that he hadn't really slept in about a day, not since Bucky had gotten bad. Sam's all-nighter days were behind him, he probably hadn't eaten enough, and if he was being honest, he was still struggling a bit to come to terms with having been dead for five years. All in all, it wasn't the most conducive set of circumstances for clear thinking. Still, he couldn't give up.
He even briefly considered Dr. Strange, but he didn't know if the guy was a real doctor, or just someone who thought that 'Dr. Strange' sounded cool (it did). He also didn't know how to contact him, or how to explain his problem to anyone who could contact him, or even if Strange would be willing to help. This line of thought wasted a full hour.
By the time Bucky next woke up, Sam was implementing the option of a mild panic. He'd hauled himself out of the chair and was pacing around Bucky's room when he heard movement from the bed. When he looked up, Bucky's eyes were slitted open, watching him in confusion.
"You awake?" Sam asked, figuring that this was a kinder question than asking Bucky if he was lucid.
Bucky hummed softly, his eyelids drooping a bit further closed. It wasn't exactly an answer, but it was more awareness than Sam had seen in the past day or so. He chose to take it as a good sign.
"Feeling any better?" Sam asked, feeling hopeful.
"No," Bucky whispered with an air of finality.
This was the last straw for Sam. He dropped back into the chair near Bucky's bed, still not having the slightest idea what he should be doing.
"Look, I'm-" Sam decided that he probably shouldn't say 'panicking,' and changed his wording at the last second- "a little worried. I think you're getting worse, and...I gotta talk to someone who knows more about this kind of thing. Do you know anybody, or-or anything, that might be any help?"
Bucky blinked at him for a few seconds, long enough that Sam thought he might not have heard him. Eventually, Bucky closed his eyes. "Magic," he announced.
It was impossible to tell whether or not Bucky had intended to be bitchy, or was just confused, but it didn't matter. As soon as Bucky said it, Sam was mentally kicking himself.
"Wanda," he muttered. "Of course. You're a genius, Barnes, you know that?"
Bucky did not respond.
Sam spent another few minutes considering - so far everyone that he'd thought might be helpful had turned out to have some serious flaws. But Sam had been on the run with Wanda for years, and while he was a little shaky on her actual medical abilities, he at least knew she would be down to help. She also did seem to be able to do pretty much anything with that cloudy red power of hers, so her being able to somehow help Bucky didn't seem to be completely out of the realm of possibility.
Sam's biggest concern was that she hadn't gotten square yet with the US government, and would be under some sort of house arrest. But Sam figured if Bucky was allowed to just rest unbothered at Steve's apartment, Wanda was probably free as well.
"Bucky," Sam said. He stirred slightly at the sound of his name, but his eyes didn't open. Sam thought he might have to go over this plan a couple of different times with the soldier. "I'm going to call Wanda, okay? I think she might be able to help you. But I don't...you gotta try not to freak out when she arrives, alright?"
Bucky turned over in bed, burying his face in the pillow. Sam resisted the urge to give his shoulder a pat.
Sam opened his phone, and learned that he only had one number saved for Wanda. This, Sam had learned, was a little bit of a risky way to try to contact people who had been snapped - a lot of phones had been disconnected. But he figured he should try that first anyways, and thankfully, Wanda picked up on the second ring.
"Sam?" she asked. "What do you want?"
She didn't sound very happy, and Sam grimaced. He tried as quickly and concisely as possible to explain what had happened to Bucky, and why he thought he needed help. He knew he was rambling, and after a minute or two, Bucky actually opened his eyes to look up at him in confusion. His gaze was horrifyingly blank, and Sam desperately hoped that Wanda would agree to help him. He may have actually begged a little at the end of their conversation, but the whole phone call was a blur, and it was impossible to be sure.
"I'll be there," Wanda said, sounding tired. "I'll do what I can."
"Thank you, thank you," Sam said. He gave her the address to Steve's apartment.
"Wanda is coming to help you," Sam informed Bucky.
"Wanda?"
"Yeah. You know, does red magic, has an accent, dating Vision before he...I mean…."
Bucky did not seem sure who Sam was talking about. He just continued to stare into the middle distance with glassy-looking eyes.
"You'll like her," Sam finally said.
Bucky blinked dazedly for a little longer, and then frowned, making the dent between his eyebrows more pronounced. "Someone else's coming?"
"Wanda," Sam said again. "The red magic lady."
Bucky frowned harder, looking as if he was trying very hard to pay attention. "No...no hospitals." He was almost too worn out to sound scared, but Sam still heard it.
"No hospitals," Sam promised. "Wanda's good people. She won't do anything you don't want her to."
"'M not goin' to the hospital?" Bucky verified, sounding as if he didn't quite believe it. To be honest, Sam couldn't quite believe it, either. Wanda had better be able to help.
"No, you're gonna stay right here. We had a deal."
Bucky's frown relaxed slightly, one corner of his mouth twitching upwards instead of down. Sam thought this might be the Super Soldier's attempt at a smile, but before he could be sure, Bucky's eyes had closed and he was asleep again.