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Steve tied off the first suture and glanced up at Bucky.
“So you thought you could catch broken glass?” Steve asked with a small grin. Bucky couldn’t see it from behind the surgical mask, but he could read it from Steve’s eyes and voice.
“Glass fell off a tray. I reached to catch it just kind of instinctively.”
“Isn’t that what you said last time?” Steve asked and Bucky had to keep himself from shrugging so he wouldn’t upset Steve’s craftsmanship.
“No, last time was the bagel knife,” Bucky corrected. “I think it was the time before that.”
His doctor looked up at him. “Bucky, I know you love my work,” he said with a tiny flourish of his hand holding the pliers, “But I think it would greatly benefit you if we stopped having these little meetings.”
“Dr. Rogers,” Bucky sighed, as he watched Steve put the next stitch into his finger. He could feel it, but it was too numb to hurt. “You won’t go out with me so I have to come up with some way to see you. This is the best that I can manage. Relationships are about sacrifice so I’ll make the sacrifice.”
Steve shook his head. “You’re flattering, but if I went out with you, you couldn’t be my patient anymore and Dr. Wilson said he’s never going to help you ever again. He said he didn’t care if you came in holding your other arm in your prosthetic one.”
“Yeah, he actually told me that too.”
“I asked what you did to him and he only said you were a horrible excuse for a human being and he hoped you lost the other arm. What did you do to him?”
Bucky pursed his lips and nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah, that sounds like Sam.”
“Also, he said you couldn’t call him Sam anymore. He said, and this is a direct quote, ‘I didn’t go to eight years of med school so that cyborg could call me the same thing my mama does.’”
Bucky actually started laughing then and Steve paused to let him finish before he stuck him with the needle again.
“Let’s do one more to be safe,” he told Bucky with a pensive face and Bucky remembered that Steve was actually doing a job here. Sometimes it was hard keeping in mind that he and Bucky hadn’t just scheduled their regular get-together.
Steve was quiet as he put the last one in and tied it off. There were five stitches this time when Steve decided he was finished and Bucky handed over his debit and insurance cards to the nurse without being asked while Steve applied an antibiotic to the injured area.
“You taking the bus home or-” Steve motioned to the hand and the new stitches going down the inside of Bucky’s finger. “I don’t know if you should be driving with only one hand fully operational.”
“Yeah,” Sam replied as he jerked the curtain back to where Bucky was in the ER. “I don’t know if you should be living with only one arm operational.”
“I don’t know if you should be living with only half a brain cell that’s operational,” Bucky retorted. Steve just sat back on the stool between them and looked back and forth.
“I’m serious, man,” Sam continued. “You’re not even thirty-five and you’ve been in the hospital over a hundred and twenty times. Maybe it’s time you consider that life isn’t for you.”
“Sam!” Steve was trying not to laugh, but he’d never heard Sam talk to anyone this way. His colleague was usually the utmost professional.
“Listen,” Sam told Bucky, ignoring Steve’s outburst entirely. “We got some good drugs here. I can get you something that can put you down humanely right now.”
“Pretty sure that Hippocratic Oath you took said, 'First, do no harm,” Bucky reminded.
“Actually, fun fact,” Steve interrupted. “That’s not really in the Oath. It does however say 'Reject harm and mischief.’” He looked at Sam pointedly, but Sam wasn’t deterred.
“There’s nothing mischievous about it. I’m letting Barnes know what’s going on straight up. He’s had his chance and he’s utterly failed. It’s time to throw in the towel. The world has enough people already and more are being born every day. Gotta make room somehow.”
“I think killing me counts as harm,” Bucky gave the other doctor a mock glare.
Sam shook his head. “No, the Oath was talking about humans. Hippocrates didn’t know shit about cyborgs. The Oath doesn’t apply to your kind.”
“Sam,” Steve warned, removing the small table Bucky’s hand had been propped on and leaving Bucky to glance over the final sutures. “Please don’t get us in trouble.”
“Don’t worry. There’s not enough trouble to go around. Barnes has taken claim of all available trouble.” He turned and looked at Bucky. “Thank you, Barnes. Don’t catch a piano to the head on your way out.”
The nurse brought Bucky’s cards back to him and Bucky took them with his prosthetic hand and shuffled them into his pocket rather than fight with his wallet right now.
He took the pen and clipboard she had for him and signed his release forms very gingerly.
“I live like six blocks from here,” Bucky replied, returning to a previous conversation. “I walked here. I can walk back.”
“Yeah, it’s only like thirteen degrees out there. Maybe he’ll freeze,” Sam added, excitedly.
“There goes your income,” Steve reminded. “We aren’t morticians. We stand to gain nothing from his death.”
Bucky suddenly composed himself into the façade of a completely serious patient and placed his prosthetic hand on Steve’s shoulder.
“You’re a good man, Dr. Rogers.”
Steve nodded and grinned. “Yeah, yeah. It’s not a big deal. I like to eat and keep a roof over my head so I’m happy to have your support in the matter.”
“Look at this shining example of professionalism,” Bucky said, looking over at Sam halfway through his words.
“Get out of my hospital,” Sam told him. “The bitter New York winter awaits you, but death waits for no man. Out there there’s scissors, slippery ice patches, vicious dogs, that ever encroaching patch of fungus growing on the hallway ceiling. Enjoy what little must be left of your life.”
With that Bucky smiled and turned to Steve. “Sam lives across the hall. We met like ten years ago when he wrapped my twisted ankle after watching me use the stairs as an impromptu slip-n-slide.”
“Worst decision of my life,” Sam added. “Should have left you to die there in that dirty, dark, desolate stairwell.”
“Admittedly, there’ve been far better men lost to that stairwell, but Sam himself was a better person then so…”. Bucky sighed with exaggeration and held up his hands in a hopeless display.
Steve shook his head. “Dr. Wilson, I believe your shift is starting and you have about a million cases to see. Bucky, I believe you just signed discharge papers so you are not my patient right now. Besides, my shift ended about the time your hapless ass walked through the door.”
"Don't look at me like that," Bucky pouted. "You know you love me."
Sam scoffed. "Love you? Don't make me laugh."
Bucky pointedly turned away from Sam to face only Steve. "Just you. You're the nice doctor. Unlike-" He motioned toward Sam behind him.
Sam did a mocking bow as if proud of his reputation with Bucky.
"Go home, Buck," Steve laughed lightly. "Be careful."
“Thank you,” Bucky said honestly, reaching for his coat and Steve grabbed it and held it up for him.
“Let me know if you see anything weird going on with the hand.”
“Promise,” Bucky answered, finding it oddly thoughtful that Steve had held up the coat for him as he slid his arms in.
Sam held out the curtain so Bucky could leave, but not before smirking and saying, “Barnes, if it gets infected or anything, don’t come knocking on my door.”
“Goodnight, Sam,” Bucky said, walking out while giving the doctor a flick of his stitched middle finger.
Bucky was walking the blocks home when a red Jeep pulled up beside him and rolled down the window.
“Hop in,” Steve called and Bucky looked over, the wind causing his hair to flip around wildly.
“I don’t know, Mister. Got any candy?” he asked, but he hurried to the passenger side anyway, not looking both ways before darting out into the street and getting a horn blown at him as a man slammed on breaks and flipped him off.
Bucky didn’t even bat an eye.
“The fuck!” Steve yelped once Bucky got into the car and was trying to manage the seatbelt. “You really are gonna die young. Be careful!”
“Eh,” Bucky shrugged. “Sam probably has a bet going with the nurses on how long I’ll be able to dodge the Reaper so he’d be pleased.” The seatbelt clicked and Steve pulled out back into traffic.
“We are not taking bets on your life expectancy.”
“No, not you. Sam. I’d never expect that behavior from you. Dr. Wilson however… Thanks for the lift,” Bucky said after a second. “I’m gonna count it as a date. Might be the closest I ever get.”
“We’re gonna be there in like two minutes.”
“Speed dating,” Bucky reasoned. “But I think it’s a promising start.”
“How many times have I treated you?” Steve asked like he knew Bucky knew the answer.
“Forty-eight,” Bucky replied without even really thinking. “I really have been in the hospital over a hundred and twenty times. Hundred and seven of those were for stitches and broken bones.” He pointed toward the parking garage for his apartment even though Steve had already put on his turn signal.
“Meh,” Steve replied as he checked his mirror. “I’m not impressed. I’ve been to the doctor way more times than you have.”
“Well, you work there so I’m not sure that’s a fair-”
“I’d been in the hospital that many times by age ten,” Steve corrected. He stopped the car in the entrance to the garage and looked at Bucky with a slight grin.
Bucky was surprised.
“I wasn’t a very big kid. Got deathly ill about a million times. And picked fights most of the time so I landed myself there a good bit. Wasn’t as big of a deal back then. My mom was a nurse with a clinic so she just took me in and patched me up and kept right on going.”
“I see you survived,” Bucky observed with a smile.
“I didn’t walk out into traffic, for one.”
“Shut up,” Bucky laughed. “I don’t usually do that.”
“Was kind of hoping to one day find someone who understood me,” Steve said. “So if you’re okay with Dr. Wilson and the others sewing you up in the future, I guess I wouldn’t mind meeting you for lunch somewhere where they have plastic silverware and styrofoam cups and cold food and absolutely nothing you can hurt yourself with.”
Bucky laughed. “Sounds like my favorite restaurant already.”
“You free tomorrow? Around maybe eight?”
Bucky grinned and nodded as he opened the door to get out. “Yes, yes. Absolutely. I’ll see you then.”
Steve shook his head and laughed. “I’ll bring the band-aids.”