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meet me at our spot

Summary:

They have a spot just outside of Wakandan borders, a stretch of meadow beyond a treeline where the stars are so bright. They have a spot, where Bucky waits with his hand behind his head, soft brown hair spilling over his wrist, for Sam to shoulder through the trees to join him. They have a spot where they talk about their pasts that seem so far away now, but mostly, they talk about their future because they believe it has to get better from here on out.

It has to.

Notes:

inspired by meet me at our spot! for mexi, who first showed me this song and now its one of my favourite songs ever, and it always makes me think of her and sambucky. this one is a long time coming <3

Work Text:

They don’t belong anywhere anymore, not really, with Sam on the run with Steve and Natasha and ditching every makeshift home every few weeks, with Bucky in rehabilitation that sometimes feels like sanctuary and sometimes like peaceful captivity.

Neither of them can remember how it starts, but they have a spot just outside of Wakandan borders, a stretch of meadow beyond a treeline where the stars are so bright, and sometimes they sneak out to be alone. Sam keeps his phone on in case Steve or Natasha call, right there in the pocket over his chest like it's an extension of his heart, and Bucky’s pretty sure he’s not as inconspicuous as he hopes he is when he leaves his quarters, but he always stays close and comes back before the sky starts to lighten up, so no one stops him.

They have a spot, where Bucky waits with his hand behind his head, soft brown hair spilling over his wrist, for Sam to shoulder through the trees to join him. Sam always has new injuries that he doesn’t explain, but he lays down next to Bucky because he’s exhausted and sometimes Bucky asks about them.

“How’d you get that one?” he’d ask, or “They roughed you up pretty good, huh?”

“Shrapnel,” Sam would answer, or “You should’ve seen Steve. He was bleeding into his mashed potatoes.”

They talk about that, and Sam swears on his life that Steve’s grown a beard, and they talk about how Natasha can only half-carry a tune but she knows all the lyrics to Don McLean's American Pie, about how the baby goat who sleeps outside Bucky's tent is growing horns.

They talk about their pasts that seem so far away now, but mostly, they talk about their future because they believe it has to get better from here on out. It has to. So they talk about hacking a car and slamming the gas pedal all the way down and taking a long drive down to a coastal town whose name isn’t on any map and starting life over there, and they talk about using fake names and moving far, far up north in Canada or buying a farm in Mexico, and they talk about the world changing its mind and letting them come back.

That’s when Sam laughs and says, “What makes you think I'd wanna go back anyway?”

That’s when Bucky kisses him for the first time because god help him, he's never seen anything more beautiful and rebellious than Sam right then, staring at him bright-eyed and making a mockery of one hundred and seventeen countries that threw them out.

That’s how they fall in love, fugitives from the rest of the world and safe with each other, laying under the moon, pressed together from shoulder to thigh. Bucky closes his eyes and feels Sam breathing next to him and thinks he might belong right here.

Sometimes Sam sleeps because he’s so tired and Bucky keeps watch, even though he has no weapons and nothing could hurt them here. Sometimes they brave it and sneak out before the sun has fully set just so they can watch the colours in the sky, or stay out until the stars blink away and the sun starts to pour gold over everything. Sometimes the air tastes like freedom and that’s when they have sex for the first time, and afterwards, Sam smiles at him, languid and sated, and says “man, this must be the life.”

They do this for two years, making each other half-promises they aren't sure they can keep, like “I’ll see you in three weeks.” Bucky hears from Ayo at the end of the third week. She says Sam is stranded somewhere with Steve and Natasha and can't make it back in time, and Bucky hates that stupid backwater town for having one passenger train that broke down right when he needed it to work.

Then he gets a message from Sam.

“Meet me at our spot. I got something I wanna show you.”

So Bucky goes out after the sun sets, and by some miracle Sam is already there, dirty and worn out and scratched up but waiting for him in one piece. Bucky asks him how the hell he got here and Sam just grins and says he couldn’t break a promise to his favourite soldier.

“You took a cargo train, didn’t you?” Bucky asks, and Sam makes a face that means yes, he did. Bucky thinks Sam might be an idiot for sitting in the back of a cargo train for god knows how many hours to come all the way out here, just to see him. He sits down next to Sam. “What did you want to show me?”

Sam pulls a shining silver thing out of the pocket of his jacket, the same pocket he keeps his phone in, and Bucky thinks it's a necklace at first, but then he gets a closer look and sees that it's a ring strung onto a chain.

“What’s this?” Bucky asks, catching the ring between his fingers and examining the way it catches the moonlight. There are six letters carved into the inside of the ring: JBB STW.

“Another promise,” Sam says, his gaze turned serious, and Bucky closes the ring inside his palm with Sam still holding the other end of the chain. Bucky holds his gaze, and in the silence, they’re dead serious with each other. They’re dead serious about each other.

 “Shoddy workmanship,” Bucky says finally, making Sam grin again. Bucky pulls the chain from him and slips it around his own neck. He looks down at the ring one more time, rolls it between his fingers and then tucks it underneath his shirt. It’s the only thing he owns now.

“Looks good on you though,” Sam says.

“I’m gonna get you one of these,” Bucky says, deadpan and a little gruff, looking straight ahead like he’s trying to see through Wakanda. “But it’s not gonna have the initials. That’s old-fashioned.”

Sam bursts out laughing, and Bucky knows this is right where he belongs.