Archive of Our Own

The Asset’s gaze tracked the golden solution as it slowly came down the IV line. His eyes were wide open; he was breathing hard behind his gag. From the other side of the one-way glass, Lukin could see him strain against his restraints.

“Are you sure this’ll work?” asked Lukin, turning his head.

Zola was catching up on some paperwork, even now. He had lost weight; being employed by the SSR put him under a lot of pressure. Working over the Asset always cheered him up, though.

“Even if it doesn’t work,” he said, looking up from his papers, “chances are it won’t kill him. This is science, Aleksander. Trial and error, trial and error.”

The Asset bucked against the straps holding him down. His eyes rolled in their orbits like a mad horse’s, trying to find Zola; obviously, he could hear them even through the glass. Even now, after regular shock treatments and as many beatings as his body could stand, something still pushed him to fight when he heard the voice of his creator. There was, Lukin reflected, an almost biblical aspect to it.

“Ah,” Zola said, a breath of pleasure. The chemical was entering the Asset’s vein.

For all that Lukin could see, it produced no immediate physical reaction, other than bringing back the Asset’s attention to his arm and trying again to free himself. But he could do nothing, only struggle in the iron caging his limbs, until eventually his eyes rolled back again and his face went slack.

“Is he unconscious?” Lukin asked, frowning.

The Asset was breathing fast. Tears started to roll down from his unseeing eyes; whatever else it provoked, the substance was causing an emotional breakdown already. It was still making its way down his arm, taking its time.

“If this succeeds, I’ll start working on an aerosolized version. Much easier to administer in case of rebellion,” Zola said.

“Yes,” Lukin answered distractedly, staring at the Asset. His vitals were stable, bouncing in jagged green lines over his head, and he’d stopped struggling. His crying had graduated to soft, contained sobs, barely audible in the whispering room. “I’ll unlock his restraints.”

“Hold on,” Zola said, “we don’t yet know if—”

“You said it grows less potent with time. We want him to imprint on me. I’m going in.”

Lukin pressed the right button on the dashboard and the hydraulic restraints gave all at once. The gag slipped out of the Asset’s mouth. He slowly curled on himself on the operating table and kept crying. It was pitiful: so much torture over the weeks to so little effect, and now he was breaking down through simple chemistry.

After a last look at Zola, Lukin walked out of the room and into the Asset containment cell. He made sure he’d closed the door before he called, “Soldier.”

When he heard his voice, the Asset’s reaction was instantaneous; he propped himself up on his good arm and stared across the room at Lukin with huge dark eyes.

“Heel,” Lukin said, and the Asset clumsily scrambled off the table in his hurry to obey. “No. Crawl.”

Just twenty minutes ago this order would have been received with a defiant glare; now Lukin found himself on the receiving end of a confused, fearful look.

“Crawl,” he snapped, and the Asset’s knees hit the ground. He crawled meekly across the room, tears still rolling down his face. When he stopped and knelt in front of him, Lukin reached out to follow the tear tracks with his fingers.

To his amazement, the Asset leaned into the touch. Lukin snatched his hand back and saw his eyes widen again—this time in something like despair, his eyes questioning: what had he done wrong?

The chemical will make him want, Zola had said. Will lower all his inhibitions like good alcohol. And in his mind you will be the only one that can provide…

Skin hunger, thought Lukin. Of course; the Asset had not been touched in months, except to be hurt or forced. He must feel this craving even in his normal state. But the drug had brought it to impossible heights.

Lukin thought for a second, then put the point of his boot between the Asset’s legs and rubbed. Just as he hoped, the Asset grew hard almost instantly. He would take any kind of touch he could get.

Baring his teeth, Lukin crushed his boot down on his crotch, eliciting a gasp of pain. “Oh, so now you want it? Weren’t you fighting us all those times before?”

The Asset wasn’t fighting now; he was—yes, he was trying to find friction against the sole of Lukin’s boot, jerking his hips. Lukin’s nostrils flared; he took a step back, then kicked him across the jaw, making him fall to the side. “You want it?” he repeated. “First you clean the boot.”

The Asset folded on all fours again and started licking his black leather boot with application. Lukin felt dizzy with power and something oddly like anger—the need to hurt what was vulnerable.

He took his boot back and stamped on the Asset’s hand, crushed, twisted until he heard a crack; only then did he register the Asset’s screams, by noticing how they had masked the noise of the bone breaking. He stepped back, breathing heavily. It had made him half-hard. The Asset was sobbing softly on the floor now, cradling his hand.

“Do you still want it?” Lukin asked.

“Yes,” the Asset sobbed.

Lukin’s nostrils flared. He grabbing the Asset by the hair—and this too elicited wide eyes, a desperate stare, which arrested him for a moment. Even that touch was welcome. Any touch was welcome. And in the Asset’s drug-addled mind, no one but Lukin could give it to him.

“I see,” Lukin said slowly. Blood was beating at his temples. He pushed two fingers into the Asset’s mouth. “Is this what you want? Go on, suck.”

More tears fell—tears of joy—as the Asset diligently sucked and licked the digits in his mouth. He kept on sucking them while Lukin unbuckled his belt. When Lukin replaced them with his cock, the Asset pushed against it, stretching his lips around it and constantly glancing up to make sure—was he doing it right? Was he being good?

He folded over the floor and coughed roughly after Lukin had come down his throat.

“Well, that was disappointing,” Lukin said, and saw the Asset’s sense of self fracture. “I will not be doing that again.”

The Asset’s tearful gaze snapped up. “No, I can—I can improve.” There was true resolution behind the despair. He was a soldier; someone who still believed in his own capacities. “I can learn, please—”

“Zola,” Lukin said. “Send two or three men in. Whoever’s in the break room. We’ll see how he handles someone else’s touch.”

The Asset was already shaking his head in horror. “No, you—please, I can—”

Lukin had intended to check whether the imprinting had worked; but clearly, he only had to threaten the Asset with an outsider’s touch for him to break down. It could be read in his every feature, the sheer agony of not being touched when Lukin was so close.

“And then a second dose,” Lukin said. “And isolation cell, I think.”

“Please,” the Asset said through more tears, and kept begging as the men came in, got their hands on him—“please, what did I do wrong, let me try again, please—” when usually he fought like the devil, he just let them strip him down, never looking away from Lukin, “please, I’m sorry, please, no, please, just tell me, please—Steve—”

*

Sam jogged across the burnt field, kicking debris of beam weapons as he went. All around him, military personnel were already clearing away the smallest pieces, sweating profusely in the high noon blaze. A few choppers were airlifting the biggest chunks of blackened and twisted metal.

Amidst the wreckage were probably Sam’s wings—his pack had been torn off and fried up good; it’d be at least two months before he could fly again. But drawing the fight away from populated areas had been worth the trouble. Collateral damage amounted to zero and casualties were almost none.

Almost, Sam thought as he approached the medics’ hastily-assembled tent.

Steve was recognizable from a mile away, his face marred with soot but his hair shining like gold in the unforgiving sun. He was deathly pale underneath, pacing helplessly, only coming to a strained halt when he saw Sam.

“Hey, man. You okay? What happened?” Sam asked as he came up to him.

“He’s in there, Sam, I can’t—” Steve took a deep breath. “He’s unconscious. He was hit with some sort of aerosol gas. They quarantined him.”

“But he’s alive? He’s all right?”

“He’s alive,” was all Steve said. He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I didn’t want him to come. And now—”

“If anyone’s earned the right to take risks fighting HYDRA, it’s him,” Sam pointed out. “And he’s fine. You just said he was fine.”

“He hasn’t been fine,” Steve began, then stopped himself, blinking fast. “Sorry. It’s been—I don’t know what I’m saying.”

It had been three months since Steve had confessed in a few stiff words that yes, Barnes and him used to be together, and no, he hadn’t brought it up. If Barnes never gave the word, if he kept avoiding touch like a scared cat and not even looking anyone in the eyes, well, that was fine. That was more than fine. Because they had all seen the grainy footage of Asset training—sometimes up to nine men at once, taking turns, never stopping even when he started bleeding, even when he passed out.

No wonder he hated touch.

Steve accepted that. Sam knew it was killing him, every time he raised a hand to clasp Barnes’ shoulder and then had to stop himself. But more than anything, Steve wanted Barnes to have his space. Steve wanted Barnes to have anything he wanted in the entire world. Even if what he wanted was a world where nobody ever touched him again.

“Look,” Sam ventured, since Steve’s breathing showed no signs of slowing down. “They letting you go in there? Just ask to see him. Might help you calm down.”

Steve swallowed hard. “I don’t really trust myself right now.”

And Sam knew exactly what he meant, because this had been him once—he’d taken some kind of weird beam weapon, got a rough landing, and Steve had, well, groped him, for lack of a better word, for hours afterwards. Constantly patting Sam up and down to check that he was fine, then remembering himself, then doing it again not two minutes later. As it turned out, men used to be much more tactile in the forties.

“How about this,” Sam offered. “I’ll go check on him. Come back here and tell you about it. What do you say?”

*

Barnes made Sam a tad uncomfortable.

It wasn’t the trauma; Sam had worked with a lot of traumatized people. Sam was a traumatized people, though he hid it better than most. No, it was more about the nightmares he still had featuring a dead-eyed Winter Soldier ripping him out of the sky. He felt terrible associating Barnes with that; he knew Steve would have been horribly disappointed. But despite all his training, all his empathy, Sam still wanted to reach for a gun whenever the guy walked into a room.

So as he pushed away the tent’s flap, it was a relief to find that Barnes was indeed unconscious, lying on a little cot in the stifling tent. They’d taken him out of quarantine, having quickly determined that whatever he’d been hit with was not contagious.

Sam stepped closer. His vitals looked stable, and he was breathing okay. But also he was crying, tears seeping slowly out of his closed eyelids.

“Uh,” said Sam, looking over his shoulder at the control camera. “Anyone watching? Are you aware he’s—”

At the sound of his voice, Barnes’ eyes snapped open. He pushed up jerkily on his elbow and stayed there frozen, staring at Sam.

A feeling of dread crept down Sam’s spine.

“Hey there,” he said carefully. “How are you feeling?”

Barnes stumbled down from his cot, pushing to his feet. He was trembling, eyes wide, pupils blown, looking at Sam like he was a glass of water on a parched day. Sam backed off slowly and felt only cloth behind him. He was fine. If this really turned into trouble he could slice his way to freedom.

“Let’s all try and stay cool here,” he said, raising his hands as Barnes advanced towards him like the walking dead. “Slow down. Do you remember what happened to you? You got hit by some kind of—”

“Please,” Barnes said brokenly, reaching for him. “Please. Please.”

Sam blinked, mouth open. Now it felt as though he was withholding a glass of water from Barnes on a parched day.

And making him beg for it.

He’d never seen him from so close; in fact he’d never gotten a good look at his face before, because Barnes always hid it behind the curtain of his dark hair. He was movie-star pretty to an almost ridiculous extent—with those huge liquid eyes, those pink curved lips, how could anyone take him seriously? And he was so fucking expressive when he wanted to be—Sam had so far mostly chalked him up to “sullen wooden murderface type”, and now… now it was almost painful to look at him.

“Please,” Barnes repeated, and the agony in his voice was just plain unbearable to hear.

“Hey,” Sam said, instinctively reaching towards him—and he really shouldn’t do that, because Barnes obviously wasn’t in his right mind. When he was himself, he had a strict no-touching rule.

But the naked longing on Barnes’ face clearly said he would burst into sobs if Sam denied him. Hell, he was already crying, shaking with it, eyes wide and desperate. This felt like an emergency. Maybe even the medical kind. Sam could—hold the man’s hand. That was innocuous enough, as far as touch went.

He caught the outstretched fingers and gave them a squeeze. “Is that all right? Let’s just—”

“Thank you,” Barnes breathed in that horribly desperate voice, “thank you,” and he wrapped himself around Sam, pushed his face in the crook of his neck, clinging to him like a lost child.

Sam stayed very, very still. Barnes had never really stopped crying but now he started again in earnest, little gulping sobs that sounded like he’d just been spared a great pain. “God,” he gasped in what sounded like unspeakable relief. “Oh God. Thank you.”

“No—no problem,” Sam said, so freaked out he was calm. His hands were hovering behind Barnes’ back; for a moment he couldn’t bring himself to complete the embrace, but after two minutes it felt too awkward not to. The minutes his palm carefully landed on his back, Barnes gasped and held him even tighter, like he was trying to crawl up inside him.

“Uh,” Sam said. He was in a tent. Steve had super-hearing. He could hear everything that was going on right now. “Steve? Can you come in for a sec?”

Barnes’s hold went abruptly tighter, squeezing all of the air out of Sam’s lungs. “No, no, please, what did I—what did I do? Please—”

“Hey, hey,” Sam said. “What? You don’t want Steve here? Just tell me, I’m hearing you.”

“Please don’t leave me,” Barnes begged with a total absence of self-consciousness.

This whole thing was making Sam very uncomfortable. He kept feeling like he should have been pushing Barnes away. But he also didn’t want to find out what happened if he did do that.

“I’m not,” he said. “I just wanna talk to him. You—stay put, all right? Just stay right where you are.”

Barnes let out a strangled noise of gratitude and pushed his face into Sam’s neck again. When Steve pushed the flap of the tent, eyes wild, Barnes clung to Sam all over again like he expected to be ripped away from him.

“So,” Sam said, keeping him close and looking at Steve. “I guess now we know what it does.”

*

Sam was dozing off, sitting up. The couch was comfortable—he’d taken his share of naps there—but he couldn’t change his position, and he probably shouldn’t fall asleep. God, he’d had better post-op comedowns.

When Steve came out of the elevator, a little shock of adrenaline woke up Sam plenty. He knew what this looked like. And indeed, when Steve came into the room, he stopped and stared: Barnes had fallen asleep on the floor, kneeling at Sam’s feet, with his head in his lap and his arms around his waist.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Sam said. He had a careful, perfunctory hand on Barnes’ shoulder; he hadn’t moved it in over two hours. “I’m not the one who told him to sit like this.”

“No,” Steve breathed out. A lot of tension left him like he’d forced it out. “No, I know. Of course not.”

“The drug?” Sam said, helpfully. “Know what it is? ‘Cause so far it ain’t showing any signs of wearing off.”

At least Barnes had dozed off, which spared Sam his looks of extreme panic every time he shifted his position like he might get up and leave.

“Yes, Natasha knew exactly the right file, it’s—” Steve visibly couldn’t look away from Barnes. “It’s. A desinhibitor. HYDRA-made. It strips—” His lips pressed together. “It strips his defenses away.”

There was a long silence. Sam remembered the look on Barnes’ dreadfully mobile features, the nakedness of it all. Yeah, that checked out. “Why me, though?”

“That’s—it’s what it does.” Steve came to sit next to Sam, at careful distance. From up close, he looked exhausted. “It was all in the files. The drug makes him imprint on whoever—” His voice faltered. “Whoever he first sees after he takes it. Basically, it’s—it’s an instant handler drug.”

Another silence stretched as Sam remembered, with dim horror, the discussion they’d had outside the tent. If Steve had been the one to go in…

“What’s done is done,” Steve said. “And—and I think it’s for the best. When he—comes round, he’ll know you didn’t take advantage.”

“You wouldn’t have taken advantage, man,” Sam murmured.

“I would’ve—” Steve stopped when Barnes shifted on the ground.

They both watched him wake up, blinking blearily at his surroundings. His arms tightened reflexively around Sam’s waist, which wasn’t a good sign.

“Hey,” Sam said. “Hey, Ba—James. It’s Sam Wilson, man. You’re back at headquarters. Remember what happened?”

Barnes nodded tightly, which made them both relax, but things clearly weren’t quite right. He was apparently making an extraordinary effort not to acknowledge Steve.

“Wanna tell us how you’re feeling right now?” Sam prodded, as much for Steve’s well-being as for Barnes’.

“Please,” Barnes breathed.

Sam’s shoulders slumped while Steve looked away, rigid with anger. Sam took a deep breath. He had to see this through. Barnes was—literally—in his hands. “It’s okay. What’s wrong? What is it you want?”

Barnes looked up at him—a quick, fearful glance—then said in a shameful plea, “Don’t hand me over. I can—whatever you want, I can—”

Steve, still looking away, let out a soundless breath of sheer pain. Yeah, Sam thought distantly. Yeah, that would work. Give a prisoner a drug that makes him desperate for the touch of one specific man. Then allow only other men to touch him. He remembered now, in some of the videos—there had been lots of men on the Asset, and always one of them removed from the scene, watching. Not touching. Sam had never really wondered about that until now.

The files said the Asset had often begged himself for the sexual abuse he’d received. At the time Sam had dismissed it as a lie or a deformation of facts, but now he understood exactly what it meant. Barnes wasn’t aroused now, though. He wanted touch: obviously, sex had only been a means to an end. Probably the only means he’d been given at the time.

“Nah, we agreed. You’re staying right here with me,” Sam said firmly.

Steve didn’t move a muscle. He would clearly have given anything to be the one Barnes had imprinted on. He wanted it so much Sam could taste it. And it had to kill him, to want such a fucked-up thing.

Barnes, meanwhile, was still hiding his face in Sam’s lap like he might not be given over to Steve if he didn’t acknowledge his presence.

“Steve, I think maybe you should go,” Sam said. “I’ll call you when it’s okay to come back.”

“Yeah.” Steve sounded raw. “Yeah, I will.”

“Don’t be by yourself, though. All right? Go find Natasha.”

Steve got up and left without a word. Sam was pretty sure he was going to spend the night pacing alone.

After he was gone, Sam sat back on the couch and rubbed his face with his free hand for what felt like a long while. Then he mumbled, “Okay. Well, it’s been a long fight and my back’s killing me, so we’re gonna move to the bed if it’s all the same to you.”

“Okay,” Barnes mumbled.

Sam froze.

“Okay?” he repeated.

“Yeah. Sure.”

Sam looked harder. “Barnes?”

Barnes blinked, then looked away—when he hadn’t been able to look away from Sam just a minute before.

“Hang on,” Sam said, taking his hands off him. “Are you in there or—”

“No,” Barnes gasped, clinging to him all the more. “No no no, I’m not, please, God, please, don’t, please!”

“Hey, hey, hey, all right,” Sam said, shocked. Barnes was shaking, fingers twined in his clothing. “Hey. It’s okay. I wasn’t getting up. Let’s both calm down.” He took an unsteady breath. “I’m sorry. I thought…”

“I’m—I’m coming down,” Barnes confessed, still a bit breathless. “Just. Please.”

“Yeah. No problem. Want me to… not do the touching?” Sam offered. “You can just sort of—you know. Do it yourself. Stay in control.”

Barnes just looked confused. Coming down didn’t mean he was fully back to himself. Sam sighed, then put his hands back on his shoulders. The way it made him go boneless against him was unreal, like Sam had injected him with morphine or something. Just by giving him a bit of touch—a bit of attention.

A desinhibitor, Steve had said. Those were all actual cravings. Only torn out of him, amped up to eleven, laid out in the open.

“Why did it have to be you,” Barnes mumbled into his lap.

Sam raised his eyebrows. “That a problem?”

“You’re supposed to be for Steve. This is gonna mess everything up.”

Sam opened his mouth to tell him what he thought of that, then took a moment to remind himself Barnes wasn’t fully in control of what he was saying. “What do you mean, I’m for Steve?”

“Steve has to want you,” Barnes said in a monotone, like he’d repeated that to himself many times before. “You. Not me.”

So Barnes knew exactly how Steve felt. “Why not you?”

“Because I can’t let him touch me,” Barnes said. “I can’t let anyone touch me.”

Sam was suddenly awash with helpless pity. All this time he’d believed Barnes didn’t remember his relationship with Steve, or simply didn’t want to rekindle it. “He understands, you know. He wouldn’t ask…”

“I know he wouldn’t ask,” Barnes snapped. Despite the frustration leaking more freely into his tone, he was still tightly holding onto Sam. “But he would want.”

Yeah. And Barnes knew intimately how it felt, to want and not to get.

“What he wants is for you to stop shutting him out. Touching would just be a bonus. One he can do without.”

Barnes made a disbelieving noise and buried his face further into Sam’s thigh. “Why did it have to be you,” he repeated, muffled.

“Could’ve been Steve,” Sam went on. “Nearly was.”

Barnes didn’t react with the horror Sam would have expected. He just went a bit stiffer as though trying not to give anything away.

“God,” Sam said. “You would’ve liked that. Right? It would’ve made you able to touch him for a little while. To give him what you think he wants. Is that it?”

“Can you,” Barnes said, voice shaky. “Can you please stop. I can’t get away from you right now. Please stop.”

Sam felt ice cold. “Right. I’m sorry. Shutting up now.”

There was a long silence.

“You were saying something about a bed,” Barnes said after a while. “I don’t mean to keep you up.”

Sam looked down at him. “Is it going to take that long to wear off?”

“The aerosol version burns off quicker.” It wasn’t an answer, and it must mean the answer was bad. Barnes was self-aware enough to add, “Sorry.”

“Not your fault. This is so fucked up.”

Barnes glanced up at him quick and wary, like he couldn’t believe Sam was sympathizing with him. It made Sam feel not all that heroic. Of course Barnes had noticed Sam had been keeping his distances.

“C’mon,” Sam said, guiding him up as he got to his feet. “Let’s go get some rest.”

*

They lay down and Sam just let Barnes press awkwardly against his side. He closed his eyes and tried against all odds to relax. Barnes wasn’t falling asleep, though, and Sam knew he wasn’t going to doze again, either, no matter how tired he was.

“For the record,” Sam said after a long while, “Wanting me wouldn’t make Steve happy. Because I don’t want him.”

“You love him.”

“…Yeah,” Sam said, because, well, yeah. “I do. But I don’t want to be in a relationship with him.”

He could feel Barnes’ heartbeat, close to his own. He wished he could have kept this whole thing clinical and impersonal, so Barnes wouldn’t feel violated later. But holding someone in his arms for so long—especially someone who needed him so badly—plucked at something in his heart deeper than reason.

“How did you meet him?” Barnes asked.

Sam tilted his head towards him. “What? You don’t know?”

With no answer forthcoming, he realized that of course Barnes wouldn’t know. How could he possibly know? He wasn’t talking to Steve. For all he knew, Sam had sprung fully-formed by Steve’s side.

“I met him jogging in DC.”

“Jogging,” Barnes said tonelessly.

“Yeah. He was kind of a dick about it, actually,” Sam went on. “Kept overtaking me, saying on your left! as though I couldn’t fuckin’ hear him coming. I think he musta run like seventeen laps while I only managed my humble daily two.”

Barnes was completely silent, which began to feel ominous after a while.

“You about to kill me for some reason?” Sam inquired.

“I was just thinking he’s an asshole.” At Sam’s snort, Barnes looked up at him. “I’m not going to hurt you. It’s not what the drug’s for.”

“No, I know, I—I was kidding.” Sam felt shitty all over again. “You know I trust you—in general—not to hurt me. I may be bad at showing it, but that’s all reflex. I know you beat them.”

“Obviously I didn’t,” Barnes said bitterly.

“No, hey, that’s chemicals, man. And even the mind stuff, that’s them. What matters about you is what you choose. And we all know what you choose. Nobody among us would ever doubt it.”

Another long silence. Then Barnes said, “If some asshole overtook me seventeen times on my run and pointed it out every time, I wouldn’t help him overthrow the government.”

Sam laughed, and half of it was surprise. “Hey, what can I say. People have followed Captain America for much dumber reasons.”

“They sure fucking have,” Barnes mumbled. “Why did you stay?”

It was a good question, and one Sam had never actually asked himself. He took his time to think up an answer. “Because I love it,” he said. “Yeah, I lost some things. Stability, security. But I love all of it. And I do love him.”

Barnes said nothing for a while. Then: “I’m glad I didn’t kill you.”

It could have made Sam laugh again, but it mostly made him sad. He thought of how it felt to live among people you’d tried to murder, while they tried to pretend it hadn’t happened at all. “I still have nightmares about it sometimes,” he offered. “Hence me not being all that relaxed around you. But this helps.”

Barnes huffed through his nose. “Least it’s good for somethin’.”

“Tell me for real, though. How much longer?”

A sigh. “Probably the whole night. And—and if you could stick around the day after, it—it would make it. Better.” He swallowed. “You don’t have to.”

“It’s about skin-to-skin, right? That’s what makes it better?” He felt Barnes’ nod against his shoulder. “You sober enough to give me consent?”

Barnes stiffened again. “Consent for what?”

“To take off your shirt. And mine.” Sam was quick to add, “But not if it’s gonna fuck you up after, thinking back on it.”

“All of it is gonna fuck me up after,” Barnes said, and sat up to take off his shirt. His movements were quick and jerky, like it was physically paining him to be apart from Sam, and Sam sat up too—taking off his shirt, wincing at the way it stuck at superficial wounds. Barnes clinging to him like a barnacle meant no field medic had come close to him.

They rearranged themselves on the bed, curling up together more intently, and—it was better. It was definitely better. Sam could feel it in Barnes’ sigh, how it evacuated a lot of his tension.

Sam put his arm around him and said, “Tell me if anything feels creepy.”

“What’s a little cuddling between friends,” Barnes mumbled.

Sam smiled in the dark. “Yeah, after all that, I think we’ll have to be friends.”

It was a risky thing to say—Barnes could have been hurt, humiliated, to have been so exposed in front of Sam; but instead he snorted again, softly, and Sam thought nobody jokes with him, nobody’s friends with him, except for Steve and he won’t let Steve near him.

“Come on, though,” he went on. “Setting me up with him? Feels like you’re trying to prepare him for a life without you around.”

“Maybe I am.”

“You forget he’s done that already,” Sam said. “He’s lived without you for two years. Seems to me he likes it better when you’re here.”

Barnes was silent. Then he said, “You used to work as a therapist, right?”

“For the VA, yeah.”

“It shows.”

“Hah. Well, thanks. I won’t make a habit of it.”

Barnes shifted against him, then abruptly asked, “Is this all right? For you?”

“Yeah, actually, it’s good. I probably won’t be scared of you as much, after. It’s all about—”

“Teaching the body,” Barnes said.

Sam huffed a derisory laugh. “Yeah. Having you near, being close like that, it teaches my body that you’re okay. You’re good. I don’t need to be afraid.” He took a breath. “But that’s just me. I’m guessing you had enough of that.”

“Maybe not.”

Sam frowned. “What?”

“Maybe not,” Barnes repeated shakily. “Maybe I can—with exposure…”

“Well,” Sam said, cautious. “Exposure therapy works sometimes.”

“Do you think it would work for me?” Barnes asked in that trembling, miserable voice. It felt like he was slipping again, going under, speaking raw truths with naked words. "Bring me back to normal?"

“What does normal mean here?”

“I want to touch him.” His voice was thick with tears. “I want to let him touch me.”

Sam held him closer on instinct, and was relieved when he felt him respond, squeezing tighter with his flesh arm. “You wanna try having him in here now?”

Barnes froze. “No.”

“I don’t mean touch him. Just—have him near. You know he’s worrying like crazy right now. All he knows is you’ve been drugged.”

“If we could synthesize it,” Barnes mumbled feverishly. “The drug. I could imprint on Steve—”

“He would hate that.”

“But he could touch me.” Again this pleading tone like a child’s.

“He wants to be near you more than he wants to touch you. And if you did that, he wouldn’t be near the real you.”

Barnes pondered that for a long shivery while. Then he scowled. “I should just fucking let you sleep.”

This time, Sam was more prepared for the abrupt change in tone. Obviously this coming down thing was a seesawing process. “Just try to rest for now.”

“If I could leave you alone, I would.”

“I know. Same here.”

A silence again.

Then Barnes said, “Okay. Let’s try it. Let’s have him come in.”

Sam looked at him, trying to gauge his lucidity. “Yeah?”

“He can’t touch me,” Barnes said quickly. “But. Just have him here. You were right. Instead of him being—alone. Pacing.”

“He does pace a lot.”

Barnes snorted.

“I gotta sit up to get my phone,” Sam said. “You gonna be okay?”

“I can do it,” Barnes said, which wasn’t an answer, but hell.

Sam let go of him and got out of bed. His room lit up automatically with a soft, golden glow when he came in; his phone was where he’d left it, on the couch. He picked up and sent a text to Steve. Can you come in? He’s asking for you. Then he took it with him back to the bedroom, where Barnes was lying rigid and wide-eyed on the bed.

“Shit. Hey, hey. I’m back.” Sam lay down next to him and pulled him in his arms; Barnes breathed out like he’d been underwater and buried his face in his neck again.

“Sorry,” he gasped, “sorry, sorry, I—”

“It’s fine,” Sam said. He squeezed tighter. “It’s all fine. Take it easy.”

Soon after, they heard Steve come into Sam’s floor. Barnes didn’t look up. Sam hesitated, then raised his voice just enough to be heard. “Here. In the bedroom.”

When he came in, Steve looked like a goddamn mess. Eyes red-rimmed, hair sticking up every which way. He saw Sam and Bucky, shirtless, all but cuddling in bed, and stopped short.

“Barnes wanted to ask you something,” Sam said calmly. “Right?”

Barnes’ hold on him tightened reflexively. He sounded too raw again when he spoke. “Steve.”

“Yeah, Buck.” Steve sounded about just as bad.

“Just—stick around. Just get in bed. There’s—there’s room.”

Steve looked at Sam, uncertain.

“There’s room,” Bucky repeated, desperate, and Steve snapped out of it.

“Okay, Buck. Anything you want.”

“Don’t touch him,” Sam warned.

“I won’t touch him.” Steve got into bed behind Barnes, lying down too. “Like that?”

“Like that,” Bucky approved.

There was a long silence. Steve looked at Sam like he was hoping Sam would explain everything; Sam gave him a glare to warn him not to say anything. Barnes was obviously gearing up to speak up some more.

Eventually, he said: “I want you around.”

“Okay,” Steve said.

“All the time,” he insisted. “And. I’m gonna. Make up a plan. I’m gonna do exposure therapy or—something. So I can be around you, too. Not with the drug. Just me.” He sounded exhausted after saying it all, and repeated, “Just me.”

“Okay,” Steve repeated, so softly Sam almost didn’t hear. “Okay, Buck.”

“That’s right,” Sam said, because he could feel Barnes’ expectance towards him. “Good job.”

Barnes’ entire body went limp. It would have been scary as fuck if his breathing hadn’t indicated that he’d fallen deeply, deeply asleep. After a moment, Sam understood what had just happened. He was Barnes’ handler right now. Good job. Meant he’d done it, he could rest.

While Sam was busy feeling sick, Steve rose up on an elbow to look over Barnes; when he realized he was fine, he relaxed by a fraction and glanced at Sam. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I actually am.” Sam sighed. It wasn’t quite a lie. With Barnes asleep, a lot of the pressure was off, and it could all have gone so much worse. “You?”

Steve smiled the shivery smile of a man who knew Fine wouldn’t cut it.

“Better now.”

*

In the morning Sam woke up facing Steve, without Barnes between them. Steve was still sleeping—or pretending to sleep, more like. Sam realized he smelled coffee.

He got out of bed, feeling a bit surprised to have fallen asleep after all. Shuffling into his kitchen, he saw Barnes staring at the coffee pot as if making sure it didn’t explode somehow.

“Hey,” Sam said. “Feel better?”

No answer.

“This is the part where we pretend nothing happened the night before?”

Barnes turned around and glanced at him. “Are you still afraid of me?”

Sam raised an eyebrow and answered, pointedly: “Nope.” He nodded at the pot. “Helps that you’re making coffee.”

Barnes gave him a faint smile. He had deep dark smudges under his eyes, but there was something new about him. Maybe the simple fact that he was smiling. “You know, you were right.”

“I was?”

“Yeah. We gotta be friends now.” He handed him a mug of coffee. “Thanks for getting Steve here.”

“I’m still not sleeping with him,” Sam said. He expected to hear a choked-off noise from the bedroom and wasn’t disappointed. “I’m not into eavesdropping bastards,” he added, slightly louder.

Barnes was still smiling, maybe even more so. It crinkled his eyes something nice. After a while, he turned away, focusing on the coffee again.

“Come in, Rogers,” he said. “Let’s all talk strategy.”