Sam comes home with a black eye and a split lip. He pulls up his hood to hide his face from Bucky.

"Hey, Sammy! Dinner's almost ready!" Bucky called from the kitchen.

"Cool." Sam said sitting on the couch.

"How was your day?" Bucky asked sitting next to his boyfriend.

He goes in for a kiss, but Sam pulls away from him.

"D-does my breath stink?" Bucky asked frowning self consciously.

"No, honey, it's fine. I just want some space right now." Sam told him.

"Did something happen?" Bucky asked placing his hand on Sam's shoulder.

"Nope, nothing, just tired." Sam said scooting further away from his boyfriend.

Suddenly, Bucky snatches Sam's hood off and his eyes widened when he saw the black eye and split lip Sam was sporting. Then he grabs his chin and tilts his head up slightly, to get a better look at the injuries. Sam instantly recognizes the look in Bucky's eyes as he uses his thumb to gently wipe a spot of blood off the corner of Sam's mouth...it was the cold hard stare of the Winter Soldier.

"Who did this to you?" Bucky asked in that deep, raspy, emotionless tone.

"I-it was just some dumb redneck, don't worry about it." Sam answered.

"Name...face...now." Bucky growled, going deeper into winter soldier mode.

"Bucky? Come on, Buck, snap out of it. I'm losing ya here." Sam said snapping his fingers in front of Bucky's face.

Bucky takes a deep breath, then tells Sam to clean his face up while he sets the table for dinner. After dinner the couple relaxes on the couch and watches a movie. During the movie, Bucky seemed to return to his normal self, which relieved Sam. The man was worried that his boyfriend had went complete Winter Soldier and was going to kill someone.

"Let's go to bed." Bucky said when the movie was over.

In bed, Sam lays with Bucky's chest against his back and arm draped over his hip. When Sam was deep asleep...Bucky quietly slips out of bed and into the cold Louisianan night. He basically stalks around the town, looking for any sign of the person who hurt his Sammy. And then he hears a group of rednecks laughing and drinking.

"...and then I beat the sh*t out of ol' Captain [N-Word]!" a man with a stained white T-shirt and a MAGA hat laughed.

That's when Bucky momentarily blacks out, and the next thing he knew, he was climbing back into bed behind Sam as if nothing had happened, as if he didn't just break every single one of that guy's teeth with a metal fist to the face. Perhaps his "winter soldier mode" is now his "overprotective boyfriend mode".