Chapter Text
“So, are we agreed, this is the roster of active Avengers who’ll be on call on Earth?” asks Rhodey, in hour two and minute forty-seven of the first post-post-apocalypse, post reworked Accords meeting of the Avengers.
“I’m still not certain I’m comfortable being classified as an Avenger,” says Dr. Strange with a pissy little frown, and Sam nearly groans and faceplants onto the conference room table.
If they’re about to have another round of “discussion” about the validity of the Avengers as a team name and/or superhero classification, Sam is going to scream.
“It’s just for the paperwork, Dr. Strange,” says Rhodey with a strained smile. “We know your main responsibility is to the, uh, Sanctum Sanctorum.”
“I still vote for Avenger Emeritus as a title over Consulting Avenger,” says Stark. “Sounds fancier.”
“Overruled,” the entire rest of the Avengers say in near unison, and Stark pouts.
“Rude! And after I saved the universe from Thanos!”
“We all helped save the universe,” says Steve, only a little more long-suffering than fond. Sam’s honestly still kind of weirded out by how much less Steve and Stark argue now.
“Also, if you’re gonna be like that, then I get the veto on account of how I died to help save the universe,” says Natasha.
“Okay! So, the roster of active Avengers!” says Rhodey, valiantly trying to keep the meeting on track. “Yea or nay?”
A chorus of yeas ripple across the conference room, thank fuck.
“Good, great. So, next up on the agenda: the new Avengers buddy system.” A restive grumble and murmur fills the conference room, and Rhodey winces. “Yeah, we know, we know, believe me, we know. This isn’t gonna be practicable all of the time. Not all of you are gonna be handling the kind of situation that makes it necessary, and there are still gonna be solo missions. But in order to comply with the new and improved Accords, we do need everybody to have a partner in the field. Doesn’t always have to be the same partner! But you all gotta pick at least one.”
“It’s for accountability and safety, kiddos,” says Stark.
“And if you don’t pick your own, you’re gonna be assigned someone,” warns Steve, which gives Sam a sudden and visceral flashback to his junior year English Comp class, when Mrs. Wood made his class do a group project on a Shakespeare tragedy.
Sam hadn’t anticipated that becoming the new Captain America would ever end up being a lot like that moment when you have to pick a partner for a group project in high school, when you’re simultaneously nervous as hell about not being chosen by anybody and also not feeling all that great about your own potential partners, because you don’t want to end up with the slacker (Lang) and you don’t want to be wildly outclassed (Van Dyne or Wanda), but you also don’t want to buddy up with the guy who’s way smarter than you and who you don’t really know (Banner or Strange) or the actual child who’s skipped like five grades (Parker), and you’re really just wishing your best friends (Steve and Natasha) hadn’t already graduated (aka retired from active duty), but they have, so you’re gonna have to go for the best and/or only option available to you, which in this case is probably picking your best friend’s other best friend (Barnes). And yet, here Sam is, facing just that scenario.
It’s preferable to being a fugitive Avenger, he hopes. It’s definitely preferable to being permanently dead and dusted.
“Uh, me and Hope are partners, obviously,” says Lang, and Van Dyne grins.
“Oh yeah? Maybe I wanted to pick Wanda instead,” she says, and Lang looks wounded for a brief moment before Van Dyne laughs. “Yeah, yeah, we’re partners.”
The conference room fills with chatter, and before Sam can relive the mortifying experience of English Comp and being assigned a partner, he says, “I pick Barnes.”
Barnes, who’s been slowly sliding down his chair while looking like he’s making every effort at disappearing—maybe by going fully under the table and making his escape, he’s a stealthy assassin type, he could probably manage it—straightens up, his eyes widening.
“What?”
Sam raises his eyebrows at Barnes. “You got any objections? I thought we worked pretty well together in the big battle against Thanos.”
That’s an understatement, maybe. Because it had been Barnes who’d quickly shaken off the news that they’d just come back to life after having been dead for five years, and it had been Barnes who’d offered a freaked-out Sam a hand up from the Wakandan jungle floor, and he’d been so rock-solid steady that Sam had managed to shove his impending freakout aside and get back in the fight. They’d worked together seamlessly to cover Steve, and then, when Stark got hold of the Infinity Gauntlet and Thor and the raccoon told everybody to hold hands dammit, use the Infinity Stones together, all of us, Sam had taken Barnes’ hand along with Steve’s.
Almost three months later, and Sam still doesn’t have words for that experience. For the space of that minute, he’d felt both unimaginably powerful and infinitesimally small; he’d been profoundly connected to each and every single person holding hands on that battlefield, and for seconds that could have been an eternity, he’d been certain he understood each and every one of them, wholly and completely, and that they understood him the same way. Through their chain of linked hands stretching across the entire battlefield, he’d felt all of them, but most of all, he’d felt the storm of Steve’s furious love and grief, and the impossibly deep well of pain and hope and strength in Barnes. Then they’d all worked together to use the Stones to take Thanos and his army out, and bring Natasha and Gamora back, and it had all faded, leaving behind what had felt like the worst hangover of Sam’s life.
That faint but deep knowledge of Barnes has kind of lingered though, like something Sam had learned in a dream, enough so that it feels oddly right to partner up with him. Maybe Barnes has his own version of that knowing, because the shock fades from his wide and clear eyes, replaced with something more thoughtful, and maybe even nervous.
“Uh, no, no objections,” says Barnes. “Um, thanks.”
Steve beams at Sam and Bucky, literal tears sparkling in his eyes. “Aww, Steve, don’t—” starts Sam, and Steve slings an arm around him as he sniffs and wipes the tears away, waving his free hand as if it’s nothing.
“I’m okay, it’s okay. I’m just—I’m just so happy my two best guys are gonna be looking out for each other.”
Sam and Bucky share a faintly embarrassed look as nearly the entire conference room goes awwwww.
So maybe Sam’s picked the weirdo loner for this particular group project. It’s not like Barnes isn’t damn good at what he does, and putting Steve’s mind at ease about both of them being out in the field post-return from the dead is no small thing.
It’ll be fine, Sam tells himself.
Being partnered up together means training together. Or at least, training in the same general vicinity, and that’s all they do at first. Barnes is still getting used to his new vibranium arm, and Sam has to get used to flying and maneuvering with the shield, so their first couple of weeks using the training facilities at Stark Tower pass easily enough. Barnes is quiet, sure, but Sam already knew that, and it’s not like they’re passing the time in total silence. They have slightly stilted conversations that are mostly small talk, and it’s fine. It’s definitely better than the extremely awkward conversation they’d had back in Wakanda after Barnes got defrosted and de-triggered, anyway.
“I’m sorry about that time I tried to kill you on the helicarrier. Also that time in Berlin. I know I wasn’t, uh, in control of myself, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t hurt you and I want you to know that I’m sorry for that and that it won’t happen again.”
What Sam should’ve said in response to this painfully earnest, entirely sincere apology: of course, I understand, I accept your apology and I forgive you, I know it was all HYDRA’s fault.
What Sam actually said: “What about that time you pulled my whole-ass steering wheel out of my car, while I was driving?”
“What?”
“You know, you on top of my car, me, Steve and Nat screaming, the whole terrifying fight situation on that bridge in DC….”
Sam was about to bring up the whole looking for Barnes for two entire years thing too, because he was honestly still kind of pissed about that, but then Barnes went pale and looked faintly sick. “I don’t remember that. I—I, uh, got wiped before the helicarriers, I think. I’m sorry.”
Well shit. “Sorry—”
“No, I’m sorry—”
“No, I should’ve known better—”
“It’s okay—”
“Let’s just, uh, start over, okay?” Sam eventually offered, and Barnes nodded, clearly relieved.
And then they hadn’t really talked to each other until the end of the world. Which was fine, it’s fine. Sam’s a friendly guy, he can make this work, and he’s not an asshole, he’s not gonna hold the shit Barnes has been through against him. If this is gonna be like an awkward group project in high school, it’s not gonna fail on Sam’s account.
They still don’t really have time to talk though, not one-on-one. They both spend a lot of time with Steve, and Barnes goes back and forth to Wakanda a few times, to help out there, and to have Shuri make some adjustments to his arm, while Sam’s pretty busy with Captain America stuff, so all in all it’s a solid month before they actually train together for real.
“So, since we’re gonna be partners and all, I think we should practice me flying with you,” says Sam the next time they’re in the training room together, and Barnes nods.
“Yeah, okay.”
This is a familiar bit of training, from way back during his time in the Air Force, so as he demonstrates with his wings and jetpack, his patter is practiced, and Barnes listens attentively, asking a few questions here and there. He’s also gratifyingly impressed, which is nice for Sam’s ego, and a sign that Barnes actually understands who his partner is.
Sam knows he makes flying look easy, but it’s really not. There’s a reason the EXO Falcon project got shuttered, and it’s not that it didn’t work, it’s that there just aren’t enough people who can do it. You gotta be light enough for the propulsion to handle, but strong enough to handle the wings’ own weight, and you have to coordinate all the many and varied movements it takes to keep flying and maneuvering while fighting. It’s a lot like being a fighter pilot without the benefit of a jet surrounding you, and without the benefit of an onboard computer to handle some of the piloting either. Redwing and his HUD help, sure, but Sam has to be ready and able to handle it all on his own. In short, anyone who tries to just put the wing pack on and go is in for a rude awakening and a swift and painful reacquaintance with the ground.
When it comes time to actually practice a few holds, Barnes tenses up the moment Sam gets close to him, and he stays tense. Sam tries not to take it personally—god knows Barnes has reason to be uncomfortable with touch, and as far as Sam can tell, only Steve and Shuri are allowed inside Barnes’ personal space bubble—and he does his best to keep the touches to Barnes’ back and arms brisk and professional. Tense or not, Barnes goes along with Sam’s directions, and they work out the most stable and secure positions for Sam carrying him or catching him.
It’s awkward, sure; it always is. There’s just no getting around the fact that Barnes is a big dude, an inch or two taller than Sam, with ridiculous long legs and a frame packed with muscle, plus he has a heavy prosthetic arm, and that all means the physical act of positioning and carrying him is unavoidably awkward on the ground much less in midair. It had been much the same with Steve when they’d trained together; hell, Sam had straight up dropped Steve more than a few times during training. And with Steve, he didn’t have to deal with hair getting all over his face, which, yeah, Barnes’ hair smells really good, all fresh and citrus-y, and it’s real soft and all, but it’s not helping the situation.
“Sorry,” mutters Barnes, after the third time Sam tries to discreetly spit out strands of Barnes’ hair that have escaped from his bun. “Been thinking about cutting it.”
“I dunno, the hipster white Jesus look kinda works for you,” says Sam as he sets Barnes back on his feet, grinning when Barnes looks affronted. “So, I think bridal carry is gonna be our best option for rescues. Let’s see if we can work something out that’ll keep your arms free for shooting…”
After a few days of practicing and testing out harness configurations, Barnes stops tensing up so much, and they’ve practiced enough scenarios that Sam feels comfortable about their performance in the field. He also feels incredibly sore, of course, because Barnes is not a lightweight, but all in all, it’s a good start to training together.
“Not bad, Barnes,” Sam tells him at the end of the week, and Barnes actually smiles, the sweetness of it enough of a shock that Sam’s glad he’s on solid ground, because otherwise it would have knocked Sam’s center of gravity just a little bit askew out of sheer surprise. Good surprise though. He won’t mind seeing this more often than Barnes’ usual careful calm.
“Thanks,” Barnes says. “Call me Bucky, please. At least when we’re not in the field.”
“Alright,” says Sam. “Then you better call me Sam. None of this Cap shit when we’re not on the job.”
Barnes’ smile doesn’t get wider, but the creases around his eyes deepen when he says, “Yeah, okay.”
Go us, thinks Sam, and mentally gives them both an A for effort and execution.
There’s a lot about being the new Captain America that’s nerve-racking and terrifying: the expectations of a nation, the pressure of honoring Steve’s legacy while Steve himself is right there, the sheer weight of hope and meaning and possibility of a Black man like Sam carrying the shield. All that’s the stuff that has Sam staring up at the ceiling at dark o’clock, sweating and worrying, having imaginary conversations with his dad and every single Black luminary in history.
So, like, what exactly should I do with the shield, as a Black man? Sam asks imaginary James Baldwin and imaginary Malcolm X and imaginary Harriet Tubman, and hell, even imaginary Frederick Douglass. How can I be the best goddamn star-spangled man with a plan possible? He’s not sure he gets any useful answers—it’s all in his head, after all—and somehow he manages to get into an actual argument with imaginary Malcolm X. But he does feel better for thinking things through like that, and a couple google searches tell him that a number of people have already written the think piece versions of Sam’s internal debates, and most of the writers are even Black. He has plenty of real conversations too, with his mom and sisters, with his community, and that helps too.
Anyway, apart from all the existential Captain America stuff, which is scary enough, Sam has to contend with the shield itself, and how to use it.
Sam’s used it before, obviously, all the Avengers have. It’s not like it’s Mjolnir. Although, since being broken by Thanos and remade with the help of T’Challa and Stark, the shield has taken on a certain mythic patina. Still, symbolic significance aside, they can all lift the shield and toss it with reasonable accuracy, and using the shield as a shield isn’t exactly complicated. It’s not that heavy when it comes down to it, and you can throw it like a big frisbee, more or less. What’s harder to manage is the kind of crazy ricocheting and boomeranging stuff Steve can pull off. Steve assures him that it’s just a matter of practice, but training with Steve proves less than helpful.
“So how do you get it to ricochet back to you?” Sam asks him, and Steve shrugs.
“Oh, you know, you just—” he says, and flings the shield with seeming ease. It bounces off the training room wall, then a weight machine, and returns to Steve’s hand. “Like that!”
“Right,” says Sam slowly. “But, like, how. How do you know what angle to use?”
“I just eyeball it,” says Steve, totally unhelpfully. Sam narrows his eyes at him, and he hastily adds, “I practiced a lot with Buck, during the war. Seriously, it’s a muscle memory, you’ll know it when you feel it kind of thing. We’ll keep practicing, and I’m sure Bucky can help too.”
Steve does end up giving him some useful tips on shield-throwing form, and Sam practices until his palms are bruised and his arms are sore from the shoulder on down. He does a lot of running after the shield too when it bounces off of something and flies somewhere unexpected. After two weeks of near non-stop practice, Sam still wouldn’t exactly call himself good at it.
Shit, maybe Sam’s just gonna have to use the shield symbolically. Or as an actual shield instead of a giant frisbee weapon. Or maybe he could ask Stark or Shuri to rig up some kind of magnet…?
When it comes time to practice with Bucky, Sam’s shield throws are around 85% accurate in terms of hitting what he’s aiming at, but the bounces and ricochets...well, Sam hasn’t exactly gotten the hang of those yet. And just his luck, Bucky walks into the training room right as Sam has to duck the ricochet of his own shield throw gone wild. To add insult to injury, Bucky neatly catches the shield with his vibranium arm. Sam expects the clang of metal on metal, or maybe a ringing sound like a bell, but Bucky’s catch is mostly silent. Right, the force-absorbing properties of vibranium.
“Having some trouble with this dumb dinner plate?” asks Bucky.
“Kinda, yeah,” Sam admits.
“Yeah, so did Steve at first. You don’t wanna know how many times I had to run after this thing in the middle of some forest in France or Germany, or hell, in the middle of battle.” Bucky’s holding the shield with both hands now, his fingers cradling it gently by the edges, and he casts a half-fond, half-annoyed look down at it. “I get the symbolism and all, but a big round shield isn’t exactly the easiest weapon to use.”
“Got any tips?” Sam asks. “I’m having trouble with getting the rebounds and ricochets to work right.”
Bucky nods. “Yeah, it’s about the angles, and accounting for how the vibranium handles force. Here, let me show you.”
Bucky’s damn good with the shield, Sam learns. He doesn’t have Steve’s flair with it, but he makes up for that with an almost brutal economy of movement, and perfect aim. Sam supposes it shouldn’t be surprising that Bucky has good aim; he’s a sniper, after all, and just like his bullets always hit their target, the shield always follows the path Bucky wants it to. For Bucky, wielding the shield comes as easy as fighting with a knife, and Bucky’s terrifyingly good with knives.
Sam’s pretty good with knives himself, and yet everything Sam’s managed with the shield so far has only been through painful trial and error. Bucky says it’s about the angles, and theoretically Sam gets it, but the shield’s motion might as well be random for all Sam can calculate the trajectory of its rebounds.
“You’ll get the hang of it,” says Bucky, with complete earnestness.
Sam narrows his eyes and looks for any hint of condescension or insincerity in Bucky’s open and honest expression, and does not find it, because it turns out that when Bucky Barnes is not in active fear for his life and/or hard-won autonomy, his whole resting murderface situation isn’t nearly so bad, and also he appears to just be genuinely...nice. Which Sam knows, okay, you can’t be besties with Steve Rogers without also knowing that Steve thinks Bucky is one of the best people to ever exist. Steve had come back from Wakanda once, after Bucky’d been defrosted, practically in tears over how Bucky’s still so kind, Sam. I worried HYDRA had taken that from him, but it’s still there, all of it. Which is to say, Sam’s pretty sure all of Bucky’s encouragement is wholly sincere, and Sam’s an asshole for being annoyed by it.
Sam grits his teeth. “Sure. Just gotta practice.”
So Sam practices. Sam practices a lot. He practices on his own, he practices with Steve, he practices with Bucky. Any time he’s not out there actively being Captain America—which is thankfully mostly about helping with post-post-apocalypse recovery efforts at the moment—he’s in the training room flinging the shield around. Sam doesn’t have superpowers, so that means the only way he’s gonna get better at this is through pure, persistent practice, and the blood, sweat, and tears of hard work.
And listen, Sam meant it when he’d told Fury I do everything he does, just slower all those years ago. Sam’s got nearly all the same skills that Steve has, and more besides. He can goddamn fly, he was pararescue, he’s a medic; he kept up with Steve for years. No way in hell is Sam gonna let the admittedly steep learning curve of this dumb patriotic frisbee defeat him.
It’s just frustrating is all. It’s especially frustrating when he sees some ridiculous shit like Bucky managing to bounce the shield off of five different points before plucking it out of the air on the rebound, like his life is a pinball machine and he’s aiming for the high score. The casual little toss of his shiny hair after such shield acrobatics doesn’t help matters any; it’s all very Elle Woods what, like it’s hard? Sam’s patience for it is wearing thin, even though he knows it’s not like Bucky’s trying to rub it on purpose or anything. At least, Sam’s pretty sure Bucky’s not doing it on purpose. Like, 80% sure. Bucky is still kind of hard to read sometimes.
“How long do I have to practice before I can pull off shit like that?” Sam asks him as Bucky hands the shield back to him.
“Oh, I’ve never actually practiced with the shield that mu—” Sam doesn’t know what his face is doing right now, but it must be bad because Bucky’s eyes go a bit wide and he immediately changes conversational course with a somewhat fixed, encouraging smile. “You’re getting there!”
Goddamn supersoldiers, thinks Sam, and tries to recreate Bucky’s throw. The first bounce off the wall goes okay, but then the shield pings off the next bounce wildly, zinging back towards them too far over their heads for either of them to reach. It clatters to the ground somewhere behind them.
“What was that you just said about me getting there?”
Bucky closes his eyes briefly, then opens them again. “Um. If it makes you feel better, I did try to use Steve’s shield as an actual shield that one time, only to be blasted out of a moving train to my supposed death.” Sam stares at him, unblinking, and Bucky grimaces. “So. Keep...trying?”
Sam shakes his head, maintaining eye contact the whole time. Bucky clears his throat.
“I’ll just, uh—” he says, and jogs over to fetch the shield, and offers it back to Sam with wide eyes and a faintly apologetic air.
Sam takes a deep breath and the shield, then he leaves the training room, not at all in a huff.
Anyway, Sam does get there, in the end. He sets up a training program with FRIDAY in the Tower’s simulation room, and with FRIDAY’s helpful lasers and holograms showing angles of impact and rebound, and that muscle memory Steve and Bucky keep talking about, it all clicks into place in Sam’s mind. He’s never going to manage Steve’s level of almost gymnastic flashiness, or Bucky’s brutal grace, nor can he match their super-reflexes, but flight gives Sam his own advantages: he can send the shield on rebounds with angles that are much wider than Steve or Bucky could ever hope to catch without wings, and he can use some new strategies with the shield too, like turning himself into a missile and dive-bombing from the air with it.
All the shield training pays off in the Avengers’ team training sessions, when Sam pulls off some especially tricky flying while throwing the shield combos, and earns himself a few rounds of actual applause, and the approval of Rhodey, which is always nice.
“Looking good with that shield, Sam,” he says once Sam’s back on the ground, and he pats Sam on the shoulder. “You’re really making that shield work for you in the air, good work.”
Praise from Rhodey is about 1,000 times better than any grade Sam’s ever gotten on a dumb group project. He beams and says, “Thanks, Rhodey.”
“Hey, I told you you’d get the hang of it! That was amazing!” Bucky says, and it’s a lot easier to accept his bright and beaming grin as sincere now.
“Yeah, yeah,” Sam says, unable to keep a smile off his face. “And hey, thanks for the help, Bucky.”
Bucky’s smile goes downright sparkly around the eyes, like bright light on deep waters. “Any time. What else are partners for, right?”
The Decimation happened to the entire universe, not just Earth. Generally speaking, that particular fact isn’t super relevant to Sam’s everyday life. He’s Captain America, not Captain Planet, he fully intends to stay in his lane as much as possible. Unfortunately, aliens will not stay in theirs.
Despite the fact that Earth is, apparently, something of a galactic backwater, all the upheavals of the Decimation and undoing it and defeating Thanos have left Earth in the position of being something between a galactic rest stop and that lone house with the lights on at the end of a rural road when you’re hopelessly lost and need someone to just give you directions to the nearest highway that leads back to actual civilization. Which is to say, Earth gets kind of a lot of visits from spaceships in need of fuel, repairs, supplies, and/or directions. And sometimes these spaceships make somewhat bumpy landings.
This week, Earth is host to an unusually large number of said spaceships. Historically speaking, any number greater than one was in fact an unusually large number of spaceships to be visiting Earth, but hey, times are changing. For the better, Sam figures, because at least the spaceships aren’t attacking them, even if these particular spaceships’ current presence in the middle of Death Valley is somewhat inconvenient. The Avengers have been called out, because hey, that’s what they’re here for, to handle alien invasions and the like, but Sam feels like they’re either distinctly overqualified—or under-qualified, he supposes, it depends on your perspective—to handle.
“They just need a tow, apparently,” reports Wanda, whose magic makes communicating with the bipedal shark-looking aliens possible, thankfully.
“Okay, so, is intergalactic AAA coming, or what?” asks Sam, and Wanda shrugs.
“And the other guys?” asks Bucky, with a nod of his head towards the aliens who look like classic Roswell gray aliens, only in more colors than just gray and a lot taller, which makes them look oddly stretched out, and also like they’re too spindly to handle Earth’s gravity.
“We have translator microbes, we can understand you,” says one of the aliens, the shimmery lilac color of their skin glimmering under the desert sun. They gesture with delicate and long fingers at the sleek, teardrop shaped ship that’s carved a furrow into the desert sand. “This is our emergency shuttle, our main ship is on the way to retrieve us. We need only achieve orbit and our people will retrieve us.”
“Do you need repairs to get back in the air? I could take a look, or Tony can—” starts Bruce.
A dusky rose-colored alien waggles their big head. “No,” they say slowly. A wave of magenta moves across their head and face, and their enormous, inky eyes blink rapidly. “There is an emergency landing function, the ship is functional enough. It is only…none of us can fly it.”
“We can fly it!” adds the silvery alien who looks most like something out of an episode of the X-Files. “Out in open space, I mean, we can manage. But taking off from a planet and entering orbit…”
The three aliens exchange a glance, and their blinks have a distinctly dismayed rhythm as their skin tones go through a whole gradient of color changes that might be their equivalent of blushes. Sam kinda wonders if these three aren’t teenagers or something whose joyride got out of hand.
“Well, maybe we can help you with that,” says Bruce with an encouraging smile.
The aliens exchange another, longer glance. “We’re not certain…well, you do not seem to have any interstellar shipyards? Or vehicles capable of interstellar spaceflight?” says the lilac-colored alien.
The silvery alien adds, “Also, your planet is…quite small. Our main ship is, I think, too big to land safely on its surface.”
“Hey now, we have a space station,” says Sam, and he thinks the pink alien mutters wait, is that what that thing in orbit was? I thought it was space trash. God, Earth really is a galactic backwater, isn’t it.
“And we know people,” says Bruce. “Plus, we’re good at fixing things. We’ll get all of you back in space before you know it.”
The shark aliens say something, and judging by Wanda’s wince and the other three aliens’ nervous hand flutters, it’s not especially flattering.
“Or you can just wait here until the Nova Corps come, whatever,” says Sam.
There is not, apparently, an intergalactic equivalent of AAA. Usually, the Nova Corps would handle this kind of situation, because technically Earth is still under a kind of Prime Directive where aliens aren’t supposed to interact with it, but between the Asgardians, Danvers, and all the other aliens who’ve paid them a visit, that’s really only a technicality at this point. So a lot of calls are made and Bruce, Tony, and Rhodey are called in to work on helping with the repairs on the shark aliens’ ship with Wanda handling the translating, while Bucky consults with Shuri via kimoyo bead to see if the Wakandan talon jets can maybe give the other aliens’ shuttle a tow out into near Earth orbit.
“Can I take a look inside your ship?” Bucky asks the trio of maybe teenaged aliens, and they assent, showing Sam and Bucky into their shuttle.
Sam tries to make small talk while Bucky and a holographic Shuri poke around the shuttle’s cockpit. He wishes Scott were here. That guy can power through awkwardness and maintain cheerful friendliness like no one else, he might as well be Earth’s good will ambassador. But Scott and Hope are out on a mission of their own, so it’s up to Sam today.
He gets as far as some awkward attempts at hospitality and a “So, uh, did you get a chance to see the sights in our solar system? Jupiter’s pretty great,” before Bucky returns.
“I think I can get you back in orbit,” Bucky tells the aliens.
“Uh, what—”
“I worked it out with Shuri,” continues Bucky. “She’s gonna send over a talon jet with an EVA suit, then I can fly your shuttle up and get picked up by the talon—”
“Excuse me, since when are you an astronaut?” demands Sam.
Bucky frowns at him, like Sam’s the one who’s being unreasonable here. “I don’t need to be an astronaut for this. The kimoyo beads can interface with the shuttle, and from there it’s just math and reflexes. I can pilot, I can handle it.”
Sam almost calls bullshit on the pilot thing before he remembers, oh right. The Winter Soldier can fly any number of planes, jets, and choppers, HYDRA had made sure of that. Still, there’s a big damn difference between flying a jet and flying an alien spaceship, and Sam cannot believe he even has to point that out. There’s no way that Bucky can just—fly an alien spaceship, sight unseen.
“Oh yeah? Well, I’m a pilot too, and that doesn’t mean I can fly a spaceship into outer space—”
“That sounds like quitter talk to me,” says Bucky breezily. “Shuri says it’ll be fine! Anyway, it’s not, you know, space space, it’s just getting the shuttle in orbit. C’mon Sam, they’re just kids, they need help getting back to their folks.”
Bucky’s tone is casual—too casual. Sam stares him down. Bucky stares back, nothing but guileless, which is somehow ten times more infuriating than his usual on-the-job intimidating neutrality thing. In fact, Bucky looks about twelve years old right now, because not only is he attempting to look the very picture of innocence, he’s also so excited he’s almost vibrating with it, a stark contrast to his usual calm stillness. Sam is not moved by how cute this is, he’s not. Because if Bucky gets his ass killed doing this, it is 100% going to be Sam’s fault, and Steve will hate Sam forever.
“Okay, well, if you crash the shuttle and die, I’m not saying a single nice thing at your funeral.”
“Yeah, okay,” says Bucky, already calling Shuri again.
And that’s that, all of Sam’s very reasonable protests are ignored. After just a few more hours of discussion with the stranded aliens and Shuri, and a bunch of kimoyo bead-enabled interfacing and/or hacking, Bucky flies the damn shuttle into orbit and returns to Earth like it’s no big deal, like Sam hasn’t just paced a groove into the hard-packed desert earth out of nerves.
“See? Everything went just fine,” says Bucky once he steps out of the talon jet, pulling off the helmet of his sleek spacesuit and shaking his hair out. A whiff of sweet, citrusy smell wafts towards Sam on the early evening desert breeze. Somehow, he doesn’t have helmet hair, his hair still sleek and shiny. God, he could at least have the decency to look frazzled. Sam’s about to detail all of the ways it could’ve gone horribly wrong, when Bucky continues, “They’re gonna get a pick up in a couple days, they’ll be fine in orbit ’til then.”
“Oh yeah? And they’re not gonna crash into any satellites or ISS? Because you can’t just fly into outer space like it’s no big deal—”
Sam maybe complains about it all the way back to Avengers Tower and then some, and Bucky lets him, mostly, which does not make Sam feel better. Sam fully expects Natasha and Steve to back him up on what a terrible idea Bucky’s little trip to outer space had been when they return to the command center for debrief, but they don’t, because they are all insane.
“Aww, Buck, you got to go to outer space!” says Steve, beaming as he opens his arms for a hug. Which isn’t new, Steve’s a real hugger now, but what is new is the way Bucky fully flings himself into Steve’s arms, then starts bouncing them both up and down in sheer excitement.
“Steve! It was the coolest thing ever, space is the best, the future is amazing—”
Steve laughs, seemingly unsurprised by the decidedly uncharacteristic torrent of enthusiastic words Bucky subjects him to, and when Sam catches a glimpse of Steve’s face before he hides it against Bucky’s hair, he thinks he understands why. There’s only one thing that makes Steve glow with a happiness so bright that it hurts. This is Steve getting back a piece of the past he’d given up for lost: the Bucky Steve knew from when they were kids, innocent and happy.
Sam’s got a heart, okay? He’s not immune to said heart getting all warm and bigger or whatever at the sight of Bucky, who’s usually so reserved and solemn, being this damn excited. But flying a spaceship when he had zero experience flying things in space, and then somehow acing it, Sam reminds himself. Ugh. Bucky is infuriating, even if he is also currently being kind of cute. Sam watches as Bucky laughs at something Steve says, making his nose scrunch up, and Sam adjusts kind of cute to extremely, disgustingly adorable. Sam has seen this man viciously knife genocidal aliens, he reminds himself.
Natasha tips her head at Sam, a silent invitation to give Steve and Bucky some one-on-one BFF time, and yeah, fine, Sam’s not gonna begrudge them this moment. He follows Nat to the common area, where what had once been Stark’s fancy penthouse living room has become something between a kitchen, lounge, and cafeteria for the Avengers and associates who are headquartered in the Tower. Sam heads for the fridge, and spends a full thirty seconds staring inside it blankly before just pulling out a bottled smoothie.
“A spaceship, Natasha! The man just flew an alien spaceship up into orbit, no training, no nothing!”
“What, like it’s hard? I’ve flown one,” says Natasha as she hops up to sit on the kitchen island counter, and Sam glares at her. She just winks and grins in response.
“Well, I haven’t. Wait, am I the only one? Am I seriously the only Avenger without space experience? Oh my god, I am. Even the spider child has been to outer space! Shit, I’ve got to learn to fly a spaceship. Do we have, like, simulations for that?” he asks Natasha.
“Probably,” she says with a shrug. “Ask FRIDAY. And no, you’re not the only Avenger without space experience. Since when do you need to learn how to fly a spaceship anyway?”
“Uh, since it’s clearly become part of the Captain America job requirements on account of all these spaceships visiting Earth?”
Add it onto the pile along with all the other skills Sam has to work on and/or learn: using the shield, leading the team in the field, doing PR, catching up on the five years he lost…every time he thinks he’s got a handle on it, some new curveball is thrown his way.
“What, you think Steve can fly a spaceship? You think he ever really needed to, as Cap?” Natasha shakes her head. “Don’t worry about it, Sam. You have a team, that means all of you don’t have to know how to do everything. Everyone has different strengths and skills.”
“I know,” Sam says, because he does know, he knows he can’t do everything. And yet, he knows too that he can always do more, that he has to, if he’s gonna be the one carrying the shield, if he’s gonna keep up with his super-soldier partner. “I’m still gonna put in some time with the flight sims.”
Sam puts in the work with the flight simulations until he’s reasonably certain he’ll be able to fly a spaceship should the situation call for it, and he keeps practicing with the shield, and he does all the new Captain America press, and it’s fine, it’s great, Sam is rocking this.
Hell, they’re rocking this, him and Bucky. If this really was a group project, they’d definitely be getting A’s, because in the field, on missions, they’re pretty damn seamless. Not quite as seamless as each of them can be with Steve, but getting there. Because Bucky takes out threats about a second before Sam notices them, and Sam knows exactly when Bucky’s about to need an exit or extraction, and they can throw the shield back and forth mid-battle like it’s just a game of ultimate frisbee. They’re good partners during battles, and after them too: Sam handles most of the talking to the press after any public superhero incidents, while Bucky quietly takes care of any logistical issues like coordinating cleanup efforts and getting first responders to and from affected areas safely and quickly. Sam’s read the history books, which had often included the Commandos’ praises for Bucky’s skills as an NCO and Steve’s XO, and now he’s learning all about that firsthand, and he’s grateful for it, he really is.
It’s just—does Bucky really have to also do shit like what’s currently on repeat on the nightly news. Because, sure, Sam had tossed Bucky the shield when he’d suddenly been in the AIM minions’ line of fire and needed the cover, but surely Bucky could’ve done something slightly less flashy than sending the shield right back to Sam, somehow managing to take out every single armed AIM idiot along the way.
“Well now, if there was an Olympic sport in shield throwing, clearly the Winter Soldier would be getting gold for the USA,” says the newscaster. “What a toss!”
“Like skipping rocks on a lake,” marvels his co-anchor. “Beautiful. Can we get one more replay? Ah, yes. Perfect.”
And like, Sam is doing badass shit too, okay? Sam caught three people from a helicopter that was about to go down, in the air, while they were all falling out of the damn helicopter. Sam heroically yeeted Bucky onto a big rig truck full of bombs that would have crashed into a shopping center had Sam not stopped it with a delivery of pissed off Winter Soldier through the truck windshield, and that shit was hard, because Bucky’s cyborg ass is really goddamn heavy. Sam saved a whole caravan of migrants from mutant scorpions in the Sonoran Desert, by being a one-man winged insecticide sprayer, which okay, sounds kind of dumb, but it had looked really fucking cool, okay, and those scorpions had been enormous.
All that badass shit just seems kind of underwhelming after round who-knows-how-many of watching Bucky calmly murderstrut his way through a cohort of terrified HYDRA operatives that they’ve flushed out of an abandoned munitions factory. Bucky moves through them like a particularly precise and graceful tornado of violence. Also, his murderstrut has way more hip action than can possibly be necessary. He’s beating up Nazis, not strutting down a catwalk in the finest all-black superhero couture available, this is ridiculous.
“Should we be…helping him?” asks Scott.
Bucky takes three HYDRA goons out with a single punch of his vibranium arm that he follows up with the knife in his right hand, both the golden seams in his arm and the knife glimmering under the harsh sodium lights.
“Oh wow,” murmurs Hope.
“He seems to be doing fine,” Sam says through gritted teeth. “This is therapeutic for him, probably.”
At least one HYDRA operative seems to have sense, because they try to run the fuck away. Sam’s about to sic Redwing on the dumbass, but no—Bucky whips out his pistol and drops the guy before whirling to kick another agent right in the neck.
“I mean, it is, yeah, but if you guys wanted to join in, that’d be great,” comes Bucky’s voice over comms, and goddammit, he doesn’t even sound that out of breath. Though he does sound kind of annoyed. Whoops.
“Yeah, yeah, alright,” says Sam, and once the rest of them join in, they make short work of the remaining HYDRA forces.
“Thanks for the help,” Bucky says, once the factory’s been cleared and ATF is rolling in. There’s the barest hint of a sarcastic edge in his voice, and a line of hard tension in his jaw.
Sam narrows his eyes, a prickle of anger rising. Bucky can’t be pissed off about the mission, can he? It’s not like he hadn’t very obviously had it handled, all on his own.
Sam smiles at Bucky, off-balance now, and brittle with it. “Sure thing, partner. Seems like you had it handled though.”
Hell, Sam’s not sure why Scott, Hope, and him had even bothered to come along. They’d practically been superfluous, given how Bucky might as well be a one-man army.
Bucky doesn’t say anything; he just shrugs with tense shoulders and walks away, and Sam’s left alone with the bitter aftertaste of his own words, and an unease that lingers.
As they approach a year after what people have taken to calling the Blip—which, okay, that name isn’t the most promising sign when it comes to people meaningfully dealing with their trauma about the five years after Thanos’ genocide—the Avengers get called out on more and more missions. Between the new, reworked Accords and the planet’s general desire for some reassurance, the Avengers become the catch-all solution for any number of mildly strange to really weird situations that pop up, which means they do a fair bit of globetrotting. It’s a hell of a change from being a wanted fugitive on the run thanks to the Accords. Instead of being pariahs, now people all over the world are clamoring for the Avengers’ help, because they’re Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.
Somehow, everywhere they go, Bucky knows the language.
Sam took Spanish in high school and college, and he’s got some conversational Arabic, Pashto, and Persian thanks to his time in the service, but that’s the extent of his linguistic skills. This has never been much of an issue, until recently. Because while Sam’s Captain America and proud of it, he’s not super proud of being a living embodiment of the loud American stereotype, the guy who never speaks the local language and always has to resort to comical gestures and talking way louder and slower than he should, and that’s really what he feels like when mission after mission has them going to places where the locals don’t speak English all that well.
Now, Sam’s not surprised when Bucky converses easily with the French farmer who reports that something fell from the sky into his lavender field. All that time traipsing through occupied France during the war presumably taught Bucky some of the language. And Sam already knew about Bucky speaking German and Russian—those were both thanks to the war too, and the whole Winter Soldier thing. Obviously he knows some Xhosa, after all that time in Wakanda, though Bucky insists his accent is “embarrassing.” Romanian Sam gets, because Bucky spent all that time in Bucharest, and once a guy knows enough Romance languages, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese are probably easy enough pick-ups.
But then there’s the Kurdish. And the Mongolian, then Vietnamese, and Urdu.
In Karachi, where the Avengers have been called in to help investigate a potentially HYDRA-affiliated, potentially enhanced ring of kidnappers who have been ransoming people, a lot of them teenagers, back to their families after they were returned to life, it’s the Urdu that’s somehow the last straw for Sam.
“Seriously? Since when do you speak Urdu?” demands Sam once Bucky’s finished talking to the distraught sister of one of the missing teens.
“What? What are you talking about?”
“What am I—the whole-ass new language you were just using to talk to her, you know, Urdu, the language people speak here?”
Bucky forehead creases up in confusion. “I—sorry, I didn’t realize,” he says, and his expression takes on a disquieting blankness.
“How many languages do you even know? Because if it’s any more than the ones I already know about, then maybe you should be considering a career change to translator or something.”
“I don’t know,” says Bucky quietly. “I didn’t even know about the Urdu until now.”
Bucky’s looking faintly ill now, and he’s rubbing at his forehead with a slight grimace. Shit, thinks Sam, most of his petty annoyance draining away. He doesn’t even want to know how HYDRA shoved so many languages into Bucky’s head, does he.
“Well, it’s a nice surprise, anyway,” Sam says, trying to inject some cheer into his tone, but it’s too late. Bucky spends the rest of the mission being even more quiet than he usually is, like he can’t trust the words that would come out of his mouth if he did speak.
Quiet or not, it’s Bucky who blows the ransomers’ operation wide open, when he matches a call to prayer heard faintly in the background of one of the ransom calls to a specific muezzin, which is some Sherlock Holmes bullshit, but whatever, Sam’s not gonna resent anything that gets the victims to safety.
Sam leads the rescue operation, and when it turns out the kidnappers do have someone enhanced on their side, someone who can do some kind of cloaking illusion, Sam uses Redwing to direct the team through the seemingly abandoned apartment building that’s not abandoned at all. Spooky cloaking powers or not, infrared doesn’t lie, and Redwing’s electronic eyes steer them true. They strike fast and hard to apprehend the kidnappers—who it turns out are more HYDRA wannabes than actual HYDRA—and free the victims, with no serious casualties. Hell, they even manage to keep the property damage to a minimum.
He wants to stick around to make sure all of the victims are reunited with their families, wants more than just the photo-op moments immediately post-rescue, because the real work usually begins after the feel-good photo-ops, but the Avengers are first responders, not social services, as Rhodey often reminds him. With the bad guys in custody and the civilians safe, Sam and his team’s job here is done.
“Hey, good work on the mission,” Sam tells Bucky on the flight back to New York, because he still feels kinda bad about making Bucky feel bad, only to be answered with a diffident shrug, and a nearly inaudible thanks.
Bucky follows it up with a slightly louder, “You too. We couldn’t have pulled off that raid without you.”
Sam nods and swallows down a sigh, and it mingles uneasily with the odd mix of guilt, resentment, and discomfort that’s weighing his stomach down. The mission went well, sure, but Sam’s head is still full of things he could have and should have done better, and he can’t shake the certainty that he should’ve done more.
Still, he thanks Bucky, and tries to convince himself that the silence that falls after the team’s post-mission check-in isn’t strained.
When they’re not dealing with the sad and frankly pathetic dregs of HYDRA, they’re dealing with AIM, and when they’re not dealing with either of them, they’re dealing with the Ten Rings. It’s all second rate villainy though, which is good for the team—it’s not exactly hard to deal with these guys—but it leaves Sam feeling antsy, like the other shoe’s bound to drop, and the more competent and terrifying versions of these shady organizations are just biding their time.
“They’re not,” says Natasha, when he shares his worries with her. “We did a pretty decent job keeping them from consolidating their power during the Blip, and HYDRA is too decentralized to manage anything big. It’s the cults and organized crime that you really have to worry about.”
Organized crime is more for law enforcement agencies to deal with. The doomsday and post-doomsday cults that have sprung up all over the place require a somewhat more delicate touch, generally speaking. The latest one they’re dealing with has actually managed to summon some kind of eldritch being though, and there’s no call for delicacy or sensitivity in dealing with that. Plus, the cultists undergo a pretty swift change of heart once they see the horror they’ve wrought in the form of the shadowy, eldritch abomination rising out of Lake Eerie. It’s got, just, like, a distressing number of eyes, and they are all blinking at different times and rates.
The team spends a couple of hours trying to take the thing down, and at some point during the skirmish, Bucky goes AWOL, no longer shooting out any of the thing’s seemingly endless supply of eyes. Sam’s decidedly peeved by this, because it means he has to dive and roll to dodge a swipe from one of the thing’s many limbs.
“Barnes, report, where the hell did you go?” demands Sam over comms.
“Gonna try something, gimme a few minutes,” Bucky says, and Sam swears. Now he’s gotta adjust their strategy on the, ha, fly and try to make sure Bucky doesn’t get killed or eaten or whatever.
Scott goes big enough to go head-to-head against the thing, not that he’s all that effective because mostly he just gets in a slap fight with it. The rest of the team harries the eldritch monster while Scott keeps slapping assorted limbs down, until the monster abruptly dissolves into smoke.
“Please don’t tell me it just teleported,” gasps Wanda.
“Barnes, was that you?” asks Sam.
“Yeah, I stopped the summoning ritual thing, I think. It’s gone, right?”
Sam’s not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth, though he does send Redwing up to make sure, and all of Redwing’s scans come back clear. “Seems like, yeah.”
When they all regroup on the lakeshore for clean up, Sam asks Bucky just what the hell he did.
“Oh, one of the cult people had this creepy old book? I skimmed it real quick and read the thing that seemed like it would banish the monster.”
Of course he just read the creepy old book. Of course. Who knows what language it was even in. He could’ve accidentally opened a hell mouth for all they know.
“Seriously?” says Sam, and Bucky shrugs.
“That seems dangerous,” says Wanda. “But I don’t sense anything, so…”
Hope, who’s wrangling a post-embiggening dopey Scott who’s mumbling nonsense about eyes, says, “Whatever, it worked, so thanks for risking your immortal soul or whatever by reading out of an occult book.”
“We’ll ask Dr. Strange to make sure we haven’t messed anything up,” says Bruce, before heaving a tired sigh of relief. “But good job, Bucky, that was good thinking.”
Bucky just shrugs again.
“Well, shit, you saved the day again, Barnes. Maybe you should be the one in the stars and stripes,” jokes Sam. “I’m starting to think you’ve got better qualifications for it.”
Sam expects Bucky to play along, to make some dry comment or another about Sam’s supposed qualifications, but instead, Bucky’s mouth goes tight, and he looks down, the sweep of his thick lashes covering any expression in his eyes.
“Yeah, sure, I’m real qualified,” he says, flat and toneless.
Okay, so Bucky’s clearly not in a joking kind of mood. Sam’s not gonna let that stop him though. Being team leader in the field means keeping morale up, after all.
“We could switch off,” Sam says with a grin, though shit, now that he’s said it, it doesn’t sound like a half-bad idea. It’d probably be too confusing though, the shifting call signs alone—
“What, Falcon Cap and Assassin Cap?” says Bucky with a harsh snort. When he looks up at Sam, Sam’s stomach gives an uncomfortable flop, because Bucky’s eyes have gone chilly with hurt and anger. “No thanks.”
Bucky turns and walks away, the line of his back too taut for his usual murderstrut.
“What the hell?” Sam wonders out loud, and the rest of the team look awkward and uncertain.
“Mean,” says Scott, squinting drunkenly at Sam.
“What, me?” asks Sam.
“You know what you did,” declares Scott, and the others murmur in agreement.
“Uh, no, I don’t actually!” he says, but none of the others will explain it, and the quinjet flight back to the Tower is strained and awkward.
After a year of being returned from the dead, Rhodey checks in with Sam about how things are going.
“So is this, like, a performance review, or just a chat?”
Sam and Rhodey are friends and teammates, but Rhodey’s also the head of the Avengers Initiative, so he’s also pretty much Sam’s boss. Part of the deal with the renegotiated Accords was that the Avengers would have a more explicit organizational structure; mostly that means there’s a lot more bureaucracy, but also that the Avengers have a bunch of support staff and some institutional checks and balances. Sam gets the need for accountability, even supports it, but you couldn’t pay him enough to take on the role that Rhodey has, even though he’d been happy to vote for Rhodey as head of the Avengers Initiative. Team leader in the field is about as much responsibility as Sam’s interested in taking, at least right now.
“What, this can’t be both?” asks Rhodey, and Sam just raises his eyebrows. “Yeah, it’s kind of a performance review, for bureaucratic reasons anyway. Mostly this is just a check-in. How’re you doing, Sam? How’s the shield treating you?”
“Not bad,” says Sam honestly, because now that he’s past the steepest part of the learning curve, he thinks he’s doing alright. “I only miss being a fugitive sometimes,” he jokes, and Rhodey gives him an unimpressed look even as his lips twitch into a smile.
They talk things over some more—how recent missions have gone, how the team’s doing, when construction on the rebuilding of the Avengers Compound will be finished-—and Rhodey concludes, “Well I’ve got no complaints, and neither does the World Security Council. The non-racist public seems pretty happy with you too.”
“So I’m getting an A on my report card?”
“Uh huh, with a gold star,” says Rhodey dryly, and Sam gives a cheer that’s only about 50% sarcastic. “Now, how about your partner? That working out okay? You two seem to make a pretty good team.”
“Yeah, we work well together,” says Sam, because he doesn’t doubt that if being an Avenger did in fact involve a report card, the entry for “Group Project with James Buchanan Barnes” would have a grade of A. A-, maybe, they probably lost some points on account of the property damage, but listen, is it really Sam’s fault that Bucky’s a heavy guy who sometimes smashes through roofs and such when Sam drops him off? Sam submits that it is not.
Anyway, by basically all objective measures, their partnership is going well. Sam’s not as close with Bucky as he is with Steve or Natasha, but they haven’t known each other as long, and they’re friendly enough. They’re doing fine, really.
It’s just—Bucky is so competent that it hurts my feelings is not a rational complaint to have about a person, and yet. That’s kinda how Sam’s feeling. It’s not great. Sam’s having the belated realization that, in this whole Avengers as terrible high school group project metaphor, Sam hasn’t partnered up with the weirdo loner who’s moved back to town after a stint in rehab—no, he’s partnered with the quiet guy who’s the star of the track and field team that no one pays attention to, and is also at the top of most of his classes, and he is, maybe, kind of, giving Sam some kinda complex. Goddammit.
This isn’t a competition, Sam reminds himself sternly. This is about teamwork.
“I’m glad,” says Rhodey with a genuine smile. “I had some reservations on account of the whole, you know, Winter Soldier thing, but Barnes is doing good work. I’m gonna talk to him too, but you think he’s handling everything okay?”
“Yeah, he’s doing well, as far as I can tell,” Sam tells Rhodey. “He gets a little edgy about HYDRA-related missions, but I’ve got complete confidence in him. He’s handling his shit, you know?”
If Bucky has any struggles with superheroing, Sam’s not privy to them. He just knows that Bucky does in fact have an admirable and tenacious commitment to his continued recovery.
“Wakandan therapy really works miracles,” says Rhodey, with a wondering shake of his head. “Alright, thanks for your time, Sam. Keep doing what you’re doing. You’re doing the shield proud.”
“Thanks, Rhodey.”
The warm glow of Rhodey’s validation lasts until the small hours of the night, when the chill of dark and doubt seep in.
Is he doing the shield proud? He’s sure trying to, that Sam knows. What he doesn’t know is if it’s enough. You’re only human and you’re doing your best, Sam, his mom would tell him. That’s all anyone can ask of you. Which was all well and good, those times when Sam had been stressing over school or the EXO Falcon training program or being a peer counselor. But now, Sam’s only human among people who are more than that, and Sam’s human best can’t possibly be enough.
Christ, sometimes Sam can scarcely keep up with his partner. His enhanced, super-soldier partner who can fling the shield better than he can and who can fly spaceships and speak a dozen languages and take out entire HYDRA squads on his own, all while his stupid hair looks perfect.
Maybe Sam’s doing the shield proud, and maybe he’s not. All he knows is that he can always do better. He has to do better.