Sam spent two uncomfortable days recovering from cryofreeze in Bucky's apartment, shivering and sweating with body aches and a very sour stomach. The only bright spot was that he could walk, andThank God Bucky didn't have to carry him to the toilet. He spent a lot of time sitting bundled in blankets in Bucky's ancient wingback chair, the only stick of furniture in the place besides his Walmart brass television stand. Even the bed was just a folded quilt with a sheet, laid out in front of the TV instead of in the bedroom.

When Bucky wasn't forcing Sam to drink hot water and honey, he spent the entire two days pacing from window to window, suspiciously eyeing everything that moved and stopping to listen every time he heard as much as a dog bark. Sam asked, "Do you ever sleep, man? You're making me tired just watching you."

Bucky smirked without looking at Sam. "Now I know you're feeling better."

"Yeah, yeah," Sam said dismissively, "But seriously, how long has it been since you slept?"

"I'm good."

"That's not the point."

The edge of Bucky's profile that Sam could see was lined golden with the last slant of afternoon sun through the window. "What is the point?"

Sam swiped a hand over his stubbled face. Why did everything have to be such a struggle with this guy? "The point is, you've been on guard duty for at least two days. Why don't you hit the rack and let me take a turn?"

"I've been on guard duty for longer."

Sam leaped to his feet. Bucky took a surprised step backwards, and visibly stopped his hands from reaching for his weapons. Sam said heatedly, "I'm fine now, and you are not a machine!" He pointed to the wingchair. "Sit!"

Bucky frowned. "No."

"You are going to sit in that chair and drink some tea while I make dinner, and then you are going to eat it. And then you are at least going to be quiet and rest if you don't want to sleep."

Bucky opened his mouth to fire off a retort, and Sam crossed his arms, ready for a second round of argument. But Bucky just sighed and sat down. Sam nodded in satisfaction. "All right then. Do you have any tea in this place?"

"Cannister"

Sam scanned the counters, and noticed a set of white metal cannisters, the smallest of which was clearly labelled "Tea." He popped open the lid, and found it half full of tea bags that had a distinctive herbal smell. "Chamomile?" Bucky glared, but didn't answer. Sam turned away to hide a grin. Big, bad scary soldier likes chamomile tea instead of fermented snake venom or something. He was willing to bet that the honey was somewhere nearby too, and he found it in a cabinet above the coffee pot. He set a cup of water to heat in the microwave while he explored a few of the other cabinets. Bucky's tastes were apparently pretty plain, or he ate out a lot. Probably both. There were hardly any spices besides restaurant packets of salt and pepper stashed in a paper cup, not even any flour or sugar. Some old-fashioned unsliced white bread that looked reasonable lurked in the next cabinet. When the water was hot, Sam put a tea bag in and left it to steep while he checked the refrigerator. There wasn't anything like ketchup or mustard in there, but Bucky did have half a pack of neatly wrapped bacon, and four eggs.

When the tea had colored to a healthy amber, Sam fished out the bag and stirred in some honey. Bucky looked like he wanted nothing more than to jump out of the chair and resume his restless vigilance, but he took the cup when Sam handed it to him. When he didn't taste it right away, Sam raised one eyebrow. Bucky mumbled, "Yes, Mom," and took a careful sip. The worry line between his eyes softened at the flavor, and he said, "That's good."

"Don't look so surprised," Sam said with a laugh, and stepped back to the kitchenette. "Most people leave the tea in too long." Bucky's only cookware was a medium-sized saucepan and an enormous enamel frying pan, both of which looked practically new. He found a lone serrated steak knife and a spatula and started the bacon while he tried to cut six uniform bread slices with the undersized knife. When the bacon was ready, he set it aside and wiped out the pan. He had used a coffee cup to cut holes in the center of three bread slices, and now arranged all six in the pan to toast. He called over his shoulder, "You're drinking that tea, right?"

Bucky answered with a loud, dramatic slurp, making Sam laugh again. Bucky asked, "What are you making?"

"Lobster thermidor," Sam deadpanned as he cracked eggs into the bread circles. "You know what you have in that refrigerator."

"That's why I asked."

"Man doubts my cooking before he even eats it," Sam groused good-naturedly. He tested the edge of a bread slice with a corner of the spatula, and then deftly flipped them, one at a time. "My mother used to make us all kinds of dinners out of odds and ends when groceries were low at the end of the week, before shopping day."

The silence was so long that Sam almost started to say something else to fill it, but Bucky eventually said, "Steve did that too, except he made soup."

"I didn't know Steve could cook."

"He couldn't." Bucky's voice held the hint of a smile. "But he could shovel cabbage and whatever else we had into a pot and boil water."

"Without even sautéing it first?" Sam asked with mock horror. "Barbaric. How did you survive?"

"Sometimes the soup was thin, but we usually found something besides cabbage to put in it. One time we had some bruised apples, and Steve put those in so as not to waste them. It was better than you might think."

"It would have to be," Sam said, thinking about boiled cabbage soup with mushy apples. He flipped two of the toasted bread pieces onto a paper plate, covered them with strips of crispy bacon with light sprinkles of salt and pepper, and topped them with the egg-and-bread slices. "I hope you like your eggs over medium," he said, as he brought the plate to Bucky.

Bucky took the plate and just looked at the nested egg on its raft of bacon. Then his stomach gave a long growl, and he smiled. "I'm not picky."

Sam chuckled and assembled his own sandwich. There was only the one chair in the apartment, so Sam lowered himself to the floor across from Bucky. The bacon was perfect, and once bitten, the egg yolk soaked into the bread. Bucky swallowed his first mouthful with a sound of contentment that Sam had named "yummy noises," but Sam tried to keep his amusement to himself. Bucky needed to eat, and Sam didn't need to poke him into being stubborn about it. Bucky needed to sleep too. The more Sam looked at him, the more obvious it was, and he wondered how long it had been since Bucky had slept. It sure looked like it had been longer than just the last two days.

When Bucky had finished eating, he leaned forward to take Sam's plate, but Sam didn't let him. "No," he said, "The third part of the program starts now, the part where you get some rest."

Bucky's face hardened, and even though his eyes were bloodshot and ringed with dark circles, he said, "I don't need it."

"Whatever." Sam stood and angrily snatched Bucky's plate, which was more evidence of how tired Bucky really was that he could have done it. "You do whatever you want to do."

Sam took the paper plates to the kitchenette and tossed them into the trash can. Then he took his time washing his hands as he let his temper cool. Bucky had drunk the tea and eaten easily enough with only token resistance, so why was he so stubborn about getting some sleep? Then it occurred to him that it was kind of a dumb question, considering who it was. When he turned back around, Bucky was still sitting uneasily in the chair with his arms crossed, fidgeting, tapping one heel up and down. Sam moved back to where he had sat on the floor to eat, but leaned his back against the wall. "Bucky, do you trust me?"

All at once, Bucky stilled. He huffed an uncomfortable laugh and looked at his hands. "Well, if I can't trust Captain America, who can I trust?"

"I'm not asking you if you trust Captain America. I'm asking if you trust Sam Wilson."

Bucky's jaw tensed. "I don't know."

"That's fair. But whether you trust me or not, whether you rest or not, I intend to guard this apartment. I'm going to watch every shadow and listen to every sound, and I'm not going to let anything or anybody get to you. You can do it with me if you want, but protecting you is going to be my job for at least the next eight hours."

"Why do you even care if I sleep or not?"

That was a good question, and it took Sam by surprise. Why did he care? Steve would have walked through fire for this guy, in fact had, but he'd known Bucky almost his entire life before he fell from the train during World War II. All Sam had to go on was this grumpy ex-assassin version that he kind of hated. Bucky knew it too, he wasn't a fool. So why? He took a breath before he answered. "I could say it was because you took care of me while I was thawing out, but I didn't owe you for that. I could have just said 'thanks' and left. You gave me the kimoyo bead in the first place, but you weren't trying to buy someone to care for you with it. You don't need anyone to tell you to do anything in the first place anyway. So, I don't know why I care. I just do."

Bucky didn't seem to know how to react to the honest answer at first. Finally, he said softly, "I trust you."

Sam grinned. "Say it again?"

"I hate you."

"Nope!" Sam crowed, "You said you trust me. No takebacks. Want the TV on?"

Exhaustion crept over Bucky's features, and he closed his eyes. "No."

Sam knelt to smooth the bunched wrinkles from Bucky's folded quilt-bed and respread the top sheet. "How about…" But he stopped his question in mid-utterance when he saw that Bucky's head had already fallen back on the chair and he was fast asleep. Sam smiled, and quietly moved to one of the windows to watch the shadows.