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What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
(Ecclesiastes 1:9)
After six months of chasing leads into dead ends and then some, Sam dragged Steve back to DC. Bucky was nowhere to be found, and Steve was nearing his breaking point, Sam could tell. And so was Sam, to be honest.
In the end, Steve didn’t put up that much of a fight, which told Sam he was doing the right thing. So back to DC they went. Steve moved out of his sad, lonely apartment into Sam’s house, and they got on with life. SHIELD was back, too, which Steve didn’t like very much, but he still kept helping out on SHIELD missions. Meanwhile, the VA welcomed Sam back to his old job with open arms. Many of his former vets were overjoyed to see him, and his first group session was completely filled with familiar faces.
Well, all except for one. He was a large, burly man who sat in the back row with his arms crossed. His brown hair had been freshly buzzed to a regulation army cut, though he had a full beard. He wore a plain baseball cap and a leather jacket, heavy for the warm weather, and he hadn’t said anything the entire session. That wasn’t unusual for first-timers, but Sam always liked to check in, anyways.
After group ended, Sam quickly slid into the folding chair next to the new guy, before he could leave.
The guy’s blue eyes widened at Sam, and he resembled a trapped animal. Sam made sure to put on his most soothing voice. “Hi there.” He extended a hand. “I’m Sam Wilson.”
“James,” said James quietly. He stared at Sam a little more, then hesitantly shook his hand, and Sam noticed he was wearing leather gloves, too. Probably a motorcycle guy or something.
“Nice to meet you, James. Was this your first group session?”
“Maybe,” James replied, still looking like he wanted to bolt. “That obvious, huh?”
“No, I’m just really good at my job,” Sam said with a smile, and James snorted. “Did you like it?”
James seemed to settle into the conversation. “It was… better than I thought it would be.”
“I’m glad,” Sam said. He leaned closer. “Look, I know it can be a little intimidating to talk in front of all these strangers. But you should think about it next time. Sharing can be a very cathartic experience. This room is a safe place, and there’s no judgment here. No expectations.”
James shook his head. “I’m not much of a talker.”
“That’s fine,” Sam assured him. “Some people aren’t. But you don’t know it won’t help until you try.”
The other man started looking a little fidgety, so Sam cut himself short. “One last thing before you go,” he said. He pulled out a business card and handed it to James. “That’s for you. My personal cellphone number’s on the back. You can call me anytime for anything.”
James took the card and raised an eyebrow. “Anytime? Even three in the morning?”
“Even three in the morning,” Sam replied. “No problemo.”
James thanked Sam, then left so quickly that Sam couldn’t even tell which direction he’d gone.
James was back the next week, which Sam was happy to see. Sam was not a shy person, and he knew he sometimes came on too strong for those who were. He’d worried that he’d scared James off, but here he was, same seat as last time.
It was a tough session. One of the vets, Mark, told the group his story. He’d actually never been overseas, did all his work in front of a computer in Jersey. He was a drone operator.
Sitting in front of that computer, Mark had killed hundreds of people. A good number of them were enemy soldiers, but the rest were innocent civilians. Some of those lives were taken by accident, based off faulty intel or bad visuals. Some were ordered.
James hung around after group, looking visibly shaken. Sam put away the chairs and then went to talk to him.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Not really… Mark’s story, I—” James ran a hand over his face.
Sam looked at the floor; he found that people opened up easier when he wasn’t staring at them.
“I’ve also hurt a lot of people who didn’t deserve it,” James continued. Then he grit his teeth and rephrased. “Killed a lot of people. There were orders. And I didn’t question them. I, uh… didn’t realize until it was too late. Just how wrong I was.”
Sam sighed and felt unsure about his next words. He’d been doing this for five years, but what is there to say after something like that? He took his hands out of his pockets and looked the other man in the eye.
“I’m sorry, James,” he said. Then, “See, this is why it’s important to share with the group. So Mark can know he’s not alone, and you two can start a dialogue.”
James paused and frowned at Sam, then threw up his hands in frustration. “That’s it? That’s all you’re gonna say.”
“What did you want me to say?” Sam asked, remaining calm.
“I don’t know, anything at all about what I did. Tell me it wasn’t my fault. Or tell me I’m going to Hell. Anything.”
Sam shook his head. “James, I’m not here to give you ethical judgments on your past. I’m a counselor, not a philosopher. How you see your past is up to you. My job is to make sure you move on from your past in a healthy way.”
James crossed his arms and breathed out slowly.
“I will tell you this,” Sam said. “I’ve seen people go both ways. Sometimes, they decide that they were just following orders, so it wasn’t their fault, and they forgive themselves. Other people decide that they should have known better, and they start becoming more charitable to try to repent. Either way, I’m satisfied. As long as they start focusing on the future and not the past.”
James shook his head at Sam. “Whatever,” he said, and walked out.
Sam worried a little, but not too much. And James was back the next week.
Sam was watching his digital clock tick over from 2:18 am to 2:19 am, when his cellphone rang.
“Hi, it’s me. James. Uh, from group.”
Sam sat up at once. “Hi. Is something wrong?”
“No, I’m fine,” James replied, sounding very apologetic. “I just… can’t sleep.”
“What a coincidence,” Sam said. He laid back down in bed and remembered that Steve was sleeping next door, so he lowered his voice. “Neither can I.”
James sighed in relief. “So I didn’t wake you up?”
“No, you didn’t. Don’t worry about it.”
“I wouldn’t have called, but this is the eighth night in a row—”
“Like I said, I was already awake. James, it’s okay.”
A pause. “So what keeps the counselor up at night?” James asked quietly.
Sam clutched the phone a little tighter, rolled over onto his side. The lines between counselor and friend were always so tough to draw. “Oh, you know,” he said, “same as everyone else, really. Regret, guilt.”
“Yeah?” James sounded raw and desperate, and Sam thought about what eight nights without sleep does to a person.
“I lost my friend. My best friend. Wingman. His name was Riley.” It’s easier to talk about him, now. A little too easy, Sam thinks sometimes. He’ll bring him up in the second conversation, on the first date, almost like he’s wearing a sign that reads, “I have a dead friend! I am sad!”
“I’m sorry."
“RPG over Basra. I saw the whole thing.” He paused. “You have any best friends, James?”
“I had one, once. I stopped talking to him, though.”
“Do you miss him?”
James was silent for a long time. “Yeah,” he said, eventually. “A lot.”
“Maybe you should start talking to him again,” Sam said. He frowned and ran a hand over his face. “The world’s too dark and lonely a place to not have a best friend.” He felt miserable. “Good night, James.”
“Night, Sam.”
“My husband says he doesn’t recognize me anymore,” Whitney told the group, voice soft. “He says I’m not the woman he married, that I didn’t come back the same.” Whitney put her face into her hands, and the woman next to her wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
“I…” Sam turned his head in search of the origin of the new voice, and he was pleasantly surprised to see that it was James. He opened and closed his mouth several times before he continued.
“Me too. I… don’t make the same jokes that I used to. I act like a completely different person. I don’t even fucking smile the same.” He frowned deeply. “I don’t hang out with people who I knew before. I don’t want to know what they’d think of me, now.”
Silence followed.
“Okay, thank you, Whitney and James, for sharing,” Sam said, beginning his wrap-up speech. “Now, what I want you to all keep in mind, is that people change. It’s a fact of life. You’re not the same person you were when you were ten or when you were twenty. You’re not even the same person you were yesterday. You learn things, you experience things, and they change you. And change can be good or bad. It all depends on your perspective.”
Sam sat on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and soaked in the sun, while Steve chewed on the end of his pencil and sketched the tourists around him.
“Okay, now draw them,” Sam said, pointing toward an old married couple holding hands on a bench.
“Yeah, they’re cute,” Steve agreed, and he started on the outline.
Sam looked down at Steve’s sketchbook. On the current page, he could see all of Steve’s sketches from today, and also a few he’d done at an earlier point. His gaze focused on a drawing of Bucky from before, wearing his army uniform and smirking fiercely. Sam’s first thought was that Bucky looked familiar, which he then realized was dumb. Of course, he looked familiar; the same man had kicked Sam off a helicarrier a few months prior.
Sam shook his head, then stood up. “Hey, I’m gonna get a hot dog,” he said. “D’you want anything?”
“Yeah, can I get a hot dog, too? Mustard and relish.”
“No ketchup? Man, you’re weird,” Sam said disapprovingly, and Steve chuckled.
Sam spotted a hot dog vendor a little ways down the street, but before he reached it, he ran into a familiar face. James was wearing big sunglasses and a baseball cap pulled pretty far down over his eyes, but Sam still recognized him.
“Hey, James!”
James looked a little surprised to have been spotted. “Er, hi, Sam.”
“Nice day, ain’t it? My friend and I are just here enjoying the weather.”
“Uh, same,” James nodded. “I like the heat.”
Sam leaned a little closer and lowered his voice conspiratorially. “Look, I don’t normally do this but, do you want to meet my friend? His name’s Steve Rogers.” Sam waggled his eyebrows at James. “You know, Captain America.”
“…No, I would hate to, uh, bother him, um,” James said, stuffing his hands into his pockets, his shoulders curling upwards.
“It’s no bother. I think you guys would get along.”
James took off his sunglasses and squinted at Sam. Then, he said slowly, “No, it’s—it’s fine. Honestly. I’m not the biggest Captain America fan, anyway.”
“Oh, I gotcha. More of a Sergeant Barnes man, I bet.”
James coughed a couple times, and he pounded on his chest.
“I’d say Gabe Jones, actually,” he said, after.
Sam snapped his fingers and pointed at James. “Okay, now we’re talkin’.”
James chuckled, and then, all at once, his face turned dark and panicked. He wasn’t looking at Sam anymore, but above and behind him. “Uh, it was nice to see you, Sam. I gotta go,” he said quickly.
“Bucky!”
“What? Okay—” Sam said, as James disappeared.
“Sam!”
Sam turned around to see Steve sprinting full speed at him, waving his arms over his head.
“Sam! Bucky! Follow!”
“Huh?”
Steve blew past Sam, fast enough that some of the beads of sweat on Sam’s forehead shook loose onto the ground. Sam, very unsure as to who they were chasing and what was happening, simply stayed put. As he waited, he bought the hot dog he’d meant to buy earlier and ate it, then bought Steve’s hot dog and dutifully topped it with mustard and relish.
After a few minutes, Steve returned, looking frustrated and very sweaty. “I lost him in the crowd,” he muttered, eyes turned downwards.
“Who?” Sam asked, utterly confused. “James?”
Steve stared at Sam with the same confusion, eyebrows furrowed. “Bucky,” he clarified.
“What?”
“Bucky!” Steve repeated. “The man you were talking to. Bucky.”
Sam didn’t say anything. He looked to his right where James (Bucky?) had been standing only a few moments earlier. He could feel the gears in his brain turning. Slowly, very slowly. The cobwebs were clearing up. He opened his mouth and said, “Uhhhhhhhhhh…”
“Sam?”
“Okay, don’t get mad, but…”
“Sam.”
Sam squeezed his eyes shut. “That guy has been in my group session for the past month,” he said, spitting out the words as quickly as possible.
A whole series of expressions passed through Steve’s face. Eventually, it settled on teary eyes and a closed-lip smile. “I’m not mad, Sam.”
“Good,” Sam sighed. He squinted back at where Steve had run from. “Hey, I gotta ask, how did you recognize him from all the way over there?”
“I’d recognize Bucky anywhere,” Steve insisted, sticking his chin out. “How did you not recognize him from three feet away for an entire month?”
Sam looked at the ground. “Well, he has a beard now.” Steve snorted. “Look, I’m not good with faces, okay?” Then he paused and stared at Steve with concern. “Are you sure you’re not mad? It’s okay if you’re a little mad. I can totally handle it.”
“How can I be mad, Sam? This is the closest we’ve gotten to him in months.” Steve put a warm hand on Sam’s back.
Sam gave him an unconvinced look. “I just told you that I’ve missed multiple chances to get Bucky back, and you’re taking this news surprisingly well.”
Steve shook his head. He was grinning. “Don’t you get it? He’s here, Sam. He could have been living in any city in the world, but he’s here. Which means that there’s a part of him, some tiny little part deep inside, that doesn’t want to run.”
After what happened at the Mall, Sam was not expecting Bucky to show up to any more group sessions. Naturally, Sam was very surprised when Bucky strolled up to the food table at Sam’s next session and started calmly spreading cream cheese on a bagel.
Sam walked slowly towards Bucky as if he were some sort of easily spooked forest creature. “Hey, Bucky,” he said, dragging out the syllables.
“Fucking Ricardo took the last everything bagel,” Bucky muttered.
“Um,” Sam said, “I’m a fan of the poppy seed ones, myself.”
Bucky turned to Sam and smirked, but his eyes were sad. “You weren’t expecting to see me, were you?” he asked.
“No, I was not,” Sam admitted. “But I’m glad that you’re here.”
“The annoying thing is,” Bucky scratched the back of his head awkwardly, “I’ve been to so many of these things, and I… didn’t think I could miss this.” He suddenly looked frantic. “Please don’t call Steve. Sam, please.”
Sam breathed out, long and hard, through his nose. He could text Steve, and he’d be here in a flash, and after more than six months of searching, they’d finally have Bucky back. But this room was supposed to be a safe place. He promised that to every veteran who came through the door. And in the end, it was an easy decision.
“Okay,” Sam said. “I won’t.” And then before he could say anything else, he realized it was five minutes past ten, and he had to start because everybody was waiting. Bucky included.
Sam kept glancing at Bucky throughout the whole session, but he stayed put and shared a little near the end, too. He even stayed put while Sam got caught up talking to Gina about her nephew and to Oliver about his latest woodworking project. Sam wondered what he wanted.
Finally, the two of them had the room to themselves. Bucky remained seated on one of the folding chairs, and Sam sat down next to him.
“You didn’t call Steve,” Bucky said, sounding surprised.
“No way, man. You didn’t want me to, and that’s important.” Sam sighed. “But look, Bucky, can you at least tell me this: will you see Steve eventually? It doesn’t have to be this month or even this year. Just at some point in your life?”
Bucky shook his head, and Sam’s heart sunk. “I don’t know,” he admitted.
“Well, can you at least tell me why not?” Sam asked.
He just shrugged. “Already did. I’ve told you everything as James.”
“Okay,” Sam said calmly. He thought about it a little. “Okay. So what you said was that you killed a lot of innocent people and that you’re not the same person you were before.”
Bucky nodded, and Sam shook his head.
“Well, newsflash, Bucky, you told me all that stuff when I still thought you were a regular veteran, and none of it caught me off guard. You know why? ‘Cause I’ve heard it all before.” Bucky opened his mouth to speak, but Sam kept going. “I’m sorry, but you’re not special, Bucky. Sure, maybe your story is a little more extraordinary than most, but all your problems are the same problems that everyone in group has. When it comes down to it, you’re just a normal veteran.” Bucky put his face into his hands, and Sam threw an arm around Bucky’s shoulder. “And we veterans have to stick together,” he said warmly.
Sam couldn’t see Bucky’s expression, and he fidgeted, wondering if he’d said the right thing.
Then, Bucky said, “Okay.”
Sam froze in anticipation. “Okay? Okay, what?”
“Okay, call Steve.” Bucky put both hands on top of his head and exhaled loudly. “And do it fast, before I change my mind.”
“What do you mean, I have to get another counselor?” Bucky asked, outraged, over breakfast a week later. He was sitting at the counter, frowning over his cereal, while Sam scrambled eggs at the stove. His beard had been fully shaved off, and his hair was slowly growing back to the length it was in the pictures from the history books. Sam barely recognized him.
“Sorry, Bucky,” Sam shrugged, pouring the scrambled eggs onto three plates. “I can’t counsel people I’m friends with. It’s a conflict of interest.” He handed one of the plates to Bucky, then took out a fork from the drawer, leaned back against the counter, and started eating.
Bucky grumpily chewed the last of his cereal, the crunching becoming audible as he thought. Then, he perked up.
“So what you’re saying is,” he said, giving Sam a mischievous look, “if we stop being friends, you can stay my counselor.”
Sam shook his head. “It’s not that easy, Bucky—”
“You have a shitty taste in movies, and the inside of your fridge smells weird,” Bucky announced proudly.
Steve came walking out of his bedroom in his pajamas. He looked dazed and bleary-eyed, but he still wore the same grin he’d been wearing for the past week, ever since Bucky came home.
“Why’re we insulting Sam?” he asked, unconcerned, as he started on his plate of eggs.
“If I’m mean enough to Sam, he can stay my counselor at the VA,” Bucky explained.
“That’s not how it works,” Sam insisted.
Steve thought for a moment, then leaned over to Bucky and whispered in his ear. Bucky’s grin slowly grew to match Steve’s. “You run slow!” Bucky said, laughing and pointing at Sam.
“That’s it. I’m moving out.” Sam shook his head. “Seriously though,” he said. He grabbed a notepad and scribbled down a few words. “My friend Grace has a group session every Tuesday at three. She’s really good. She used to be one of my vets, actually, so it’s basically like you’re getting Sam 2.0.” Bucky looked reassured by this information, and he readily took the notepad from Sam. “You know,” Sam continued, “Steve, you should go, too. I think you’d like it.”
Steve quickly frowned, and his shoulders tensed up. “Uh, I think the super-serum made me immune to therapy.”
“You’re so full of shit, Steve,” Bucky said. He threw an arm around Steve and dragged him in. Steve’s frown softened mildly. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure he comes with.” Bucky look at Sam and nodded. “Thank you, Sam. For everything.”
“Yeah, man,” Sam said.