Final Lap - Sambucky AU

16

Sam got back to the hotel room and saw that Bucky had packed up and left already. He had anticipated it.

He started to pack his things up until he saw a letter on his bag.

Sam raised a brow and picked it up. It was basically notebook paper folded in half, so he knew this was Bucky for sure.

He unfolded it and read the little note.

It had three words.

See You There :)

Sam nearly laughed. He just placed it in his pocket and packed up. He walked out of the room and headed down to the car where Sarah was waiting for him.

"You ready?" She said excitedly.

"Yes I am." Sam Said with a chuckle. "Also, are mom and dad gonna be at the races?"

Sarah nodded with excitement. "They're gonna be at almost every race this season!" She said with a grin.

Sam felt a smile go across his face. He couldn't wait.

Bucky and Natasha were at the airport. He had a black hoodie on and was messing around with his phone.

He saw the first race was going to be in Bahrain. He pulled up a picture of the track and started to scan it while looking at the picture.

"Is that focus I see there Bucky?" Natasha said. Bucky flinched and looked at her. "Oh, just checking out the map for the first race."

"Are you doing that memorization technique from before you crashed". He was capable of memorizing tracks very quickly, and he performed perfectly for the practice laps the day before the race.

"Oh yeah... I am." He said as he felt his phone vibrate. He saw it was Steve's number. He frowned and answered.

"What do you want..." Bucky said as he walked away from Natasha.

"I want to talk to you." Steve said.

"Oh now you do? What do you want to talk about?" Bucky said with anger in his voice. Steve sighed and turned his television on.

"I want you to stop talking to Sam." Steve said. Bucky frowned and looked at Natasha slightly.

"Why..."

"You two are the cover of every article, every racing channel, etc. I need you two to stop becoming this match made in hell". Steve said as he pulled up a picture of Bucky and Sam at the track.

"Sam is my friend... I'm not deserting him." Bucky said as he walked over to a window. Steve sighed and pressed Sam's picture and looked at his stats.

"Bucky, if you don't stop being around him, or if you don't stop talking to him, or if you stop tutoring him or whatever he won't make it to the end of the season." Steve said calmly.

Bucky paused in the middle of the airport crowd. He gripped the phone. "You are awful..."

"I know.... But with you and me, that is how this works. If you don't follow my rules, everything that happened to you three years ago will happen to him." Steve said as he got up and poured himself a bit of whiskey.

Bucky had no words to say. He didn't know where to go with this. He just looked down and nodded. "Fine..." Bucky felt as if his heart shattered when he said that.

He found a person who would listen to him, who enjoyed his company, who saved him, who he wanted to be his friend, and he just gets told to abandon him to keep him alive.

It's not a hard choice, just a painful one.

"Perfect. Well... Bucky, I'll see you at the trac-" Bucky hung up on him. Bucky opened his Instagram and looked at Sam's profile. He looked at Sam's picture.

He couldn't block him...

He just muted his notifications and closed the app. He also muted his phone number. Bucky just held his head and sighed as he walked back to Natasha.

He sat next to her and opened up the race track diagram and studied it. Natasha noticed a shift in his attitude...

She knew it wasn't a good shift. "Bucky?" She said calmly. He ignored her.

"Bucky..." she said calmly.

He looked up and stared out the window near their gate. "You know how you have to make decisions that hurt you but benefit others..." Bucky said.

Natasha was confused where this was coming from. "Yeah?"

"I just had to make one of those decisions... it hurts both parties, but one stays alive." Bucky said as he looked down at his lap.

Natasha was confused and concerned but she figured right now was not the time to ask him about this decision. She just simply reached over, held his hand tightly and reassured him the decision he made was perfect.

Bucky shook his head. He held his head and just said he had no other choice.

Sam had texted Bucky but didn't see a response. He anticipated it, but wasn't too worried.

He was getting ready to board his plane with Sarah. She was very excited to be in Florida cause the family was coming to visit them from Louisiana.

Sam figured Bucky was on the plane and turned his phone.

He sat down with Sarah on the plane and thought about the upcoming race. He was excited and ready to see how this season goes.

He was going to be working with Bucky to take down Steve a couple notches. Sarah tapped Sam's shoulder and showed him a picture she took of him and Bucky laughing at the beach.

Sam smiled softly at it. "He is a really nice and cool guy. Definitely the friend I needed." Sam said as he looked at his sister.

"Oh I can tell." She said with a chuckle. "Here, I'll sent you the picture." She said as she proceeded to sent a copy to him.

"Thank you." He said as relaxed in his seat. This was his last bit of peace before the season starts.

He was going to relax and just look forward to the next challenge in front of him.