[ It doesn't feel like the end, is the thing - or at least, not like how Sam pictured it. He has a brief moment of feeling his fingers and toes going numb, of having a sensation of wrong flood through through him. And then it's over faster than he can consciously think 'not here, not like Riley, without leaving a body behind for my sister to bury'. Sam Wilson dies. Nobody sees it, nobody bears witness. He dies alone, in a thicket in Wakanda. He dies alongside trillions of people all across the galaxy. Half of all life... culled.
And then... he's... back.
It feels like the blink of an eye, like no time has passed at all. One moment he's here, then he's... not. It's like breathing wrong for a second. It's like walking down the stairs in the dark thinking there's one more step, but hitting the floor too hard. It's like the way his stomach lurches when he drops out of the sky, letting the ground rush up at him like a familiar friend wondering when it'll be his time to collide.
Dying, in the end, felt like it never happened, and that's not nearly as pleasant or comforting as it might sound.
Afterwards, Sam feels... numb, for the most part. He's good at compartmentalising. Good at being there for everyone around him while he's fraying at the edges. He keeps clenching his fingers, willing feeling back into them while he feels like he's about to crumble away again. But he steps up, because it's what he does, and because after the battle there's work to do, him and Steve and Wanda and Bucky are still technically wanted fugitives, and Secretary fucking Ross is sniffing around them like a blood hound while everyone is still trying to get their footing back, and...
He tries to look to the people he spent the last two years with. Except... that was five years ago. He lost five years, just like that, and he doesn't know what happend to Sarah and her kids, he doesn't know if they're okay, he needs to go home, he needs to...
Tony Stark almost died on that battlefield, surviving the final snap by a hair, and Sam still feels sick with how close the man came. Sam remembers yelling at people to move, remembers running while others were standing still, years of pararescue training and work kicking into overdrive, and then other people also moving, and in the end it's him, Bruce, Shuri kneeling over Tony, a flurry of hands and shoddy battlefield work, but Sam's done more with less in the desert, and Shuri has better tech than the Air Force ever had. Sam barely remembers what they did to get Tony through, but he does remember catching the man's eyes at some point and quietly telling him that dying after a cool one-liner wasn't on the menu today.
And then...
Then Sam, later, learns that Natasha Romanoff is dead.
And Vision died five years ago.
So did Loki - not a personal loss for Sam, but one for Thor, so it still hits in its own way.
There is no body for Nat. Sam thinks somebody tells him she led the team, and she saved everyone, and now she's gone, and that's all anyone can bring themselves to say, and they have haunted looks in their eyes, and he can't press, he can't tell them 'Steve and her are all I have left, I need to know what happened to her' because his grief doesn't supersede theirs.
Sam died and came back to life like he'd just blinked his eyes, like his heart had just skipped a single beat, like his breath had caught just for a second, and just like that he's lost five years and several team mates and one of his two closest...
Steve Rogers leaves.
There's no warning, no heads-up - at least not for Sam. Steve just steps on a platform to place the Infinity Stones back in their timelines, but he never returns, and Sam is so close to straight up panic. He thinks he yells at poor Bruce, because they just had services for everyone they lost, because Natasha is dead, and what do you mean Steve is just gone and...
A few minutes later, Sam is given barely an explanation, and he's given a shield that doesn't represent people like him, a job he never asked to have, and he's lost both of his closest friends, the people he spent the last two years with 24/7 except it was five years ago and now they're just... gone. One dead, one left, and at that point, it hardly feels like a difference.
Bucky walks away because the man is a mess, and Secretary Ross is lingering, making unpleasant eyes at both Bucky and Sam because he's still itching for those arrests and Sam takes a few steps through the trees and then he just...
He's no longer holding it together.
The shield hits the ground and Sam takes another two or three steps, puts his back to a tree and sinks down, knees against his chest, hands between the knees because they're shaking badly. His face is ashy, and he feels like throwing up. His eyes are wet, and his fingers are numb, and he's not sure he's breathing right, vision fuzzy at the edges.
He tries to pull it together. It feels too selfish to fall apart like this, not when things need doing. Not when other people have suffered the same losses he has, if not more, not when they need support, not when...
Someone's walking towards him. From far away, Sam thinks his brain registers Tony. Outside of fighting for Tony's life just a day ago, Sam dimly registers that he's last actually spoken to Tony two years ago from inside a cell on the Raft. Ten days on the Raft, and thank god Clint and Scott got plea deals to go home to their families. But oh god, it's not been two years for Tony, has it, it's been seven years.
Tony stops by the shield where Sam just dropped it on the ground, and for a moment they both just look at it on the forest floor. And then they look at each other, and Sam doesn't want to say 'Steve left', so instead... ]
[ Tony exhales through his nose, making a sound that might've been a chuckle. He forces a smirk onto his face, a little upturn of his lips on the not scarred side. ] Oh, don't worry about me; they got me on the good shit. [ He quips. It's always a fuckin' quip with him, isn't it? Steve would probably be so annoyed when Sam told him about this, later.
Except... Tony looks back down at the shield, resting on the ground, it's red white and blue paint standing out starkly against the greens and browns of the forest. He rolls his bad shoulder - it makes a horrible clicking-popping sound as he does - and decides this, like snapping with the Infinity Stones, was best done like ripping off a Band-Aid: Quickly and without thinking too much about it.
He bends over, fingers scraping up the dirt as he picks the shield up with the arm not currently confined to a sling and walks the few paces over to where Sam's stooped over. ] Think... You mighta dropped this. [ It's another quip, and he hates himself for it a little, picking up the slack in Steve's absence.
Tony blinks rapidly as the realization sinks in. He isn't gonna cry, damn it, but- It was strange, still, losing the last piece of Howard that he'd gotten to keep all these years later. Don't think about it, he orders himself. As usual, he does a terrible job listening, and he inhales sharply, trying not to make it sound like the sniffle it is. ]
[ Sam swallows. This isn't fair. He shouldn't be the one who tells Tony about any of this. He looks at the shield on Tony's arm, up into his eyes. Steve had said the shield was his, and Sam wants to vomit all over again, because none of this is fair, and neither Steve nor Bucky understood what they were doing to him. He's not sure Tony does either, though perhaps he gets it a bit more. Not like Rhodey's one to take nonsense from his best friend, after all.
Still, Sam doesn't immediately reach for it. He looks at Tony like he wants to ask him not to ask, but he knows that's not fair either.
None of it is, to either of them.
God damnit. ]
Nothing went wrong. [ Sam swallows. ] He... took the stones, and I guess he just... stayed. [ He glances over towards the lake. His own eyes are too shiny, but Sam's always been good at burying his feelings. He doesn't break down on others, he just... he has to be on point. He can't let everyone else around him down just because he feels sad and broken and alone in the world because he lost everyone he'd been close to before he died. So he blows out a slow, steady breath to control his voice. ] He stayed in the past. Got married, grew old. Just... came back for this. [ A vague gesture at the shield. Sam looks devastated, too, despite how much he's trying to hold it together for Tony's sake. ]
[ It's not fair, it's not fucking fair in the slightest but- Well, Tony got pretty used to unfair what feels like a few lifetimes ago. But the bright side is still the bright side; nothing went wrong, other than Steve finally getting to live his life not as Cap, but as himself. ] Damn what are we, then? Chopped liver? [ A pleasant laugh rings out, tight at the edges, but Tony's a good showman when he's paying attention to his poker face. The laughter dies down and he lets out a sigh that feels more honest. ] Sorry. Not funny.
[ Every joke has a kernel of truth to it, but Tony supposes Sam probably is feels some kinda way about Steve just... Ditching. So he should probably keep his own brand of feelings-masking humor to himself.
Of course, Tony is notoriously bad at keeping his mouth shut. ] Still, you'd think he'd at least... [ The arm in the sling, the one not carrying the shield, gesticulates as best it can. ] Do this a bit more, y'know, formally? [ He might not get it, because Tony's about as privileged as a person can get, but being friends with Rhodey for so long has certainly taught him a few lessons. A beat of silence goes by. ] Either way: You need someone to validate this to Ross so you can go Captain America-ing, I got you. [ Because obviously Sam's going to do it. Someone needs to take up the mantle. It might as well be someone who's already an Avenger, and one of Steve's inner circle, and Tony's not so sure he's up for answering to Bucky Barnes just yet. ]
[ Sam huffs a sound that could have been laugh and died somewhere bitter on the way. He looks away for a moment, blinking a few times, mouth twisting. Shit, but it stings. All of it stings and hurts and weighs on him in places he can't quite figure out, and doesn't necessarily want to discuss. And without offense to Tony, but Sam doesn't like falling apart on anyone at the best of times. ]
I... don't even know.
[ He reaches out. Drops his hands down for a moment, then sighs and takes the shield from Tony. Holds it a bit like it's about to burn him. Nobody has asked him - it feels like everyone is just telling him. The Avengers are scattering to the winds - Thor is leaving for New Asgard and then for space to find himself. Bruce said something about an island. Clint wants to give retirement another go. Wanda is grieving. Rhodey is kinda done, too. There's a whole bunch of people Sam has never seen before the battle, and they all have their own shit to deal with back in space, or other places in the world. Tony... is hurt, and technically retired, too. The Spider Child is gonna go back to being a Spider Child, one would hope.
Where does that leave Sam, other than burdened? He looks down at the shield. ]
I think Ross is still itching to throw me in prison. [ A beat, Tony's words slowly thinking in, and Sam looks startled, as if it hadn't quite settled on him that having the shield thrust upon him meant people expected him to take up the title, too. ] Wait... what?
Well... [ Tony hesitates like he's not quite sure why he's explaining this. ] Cap- [ He chuckles, shakes his head a bit sadly, like he accidentally said is instead of was, before continuing. ] Sorry, Steve. [ He lets the name sink in for himself a bit. This would absolutely be weird for a while, sure, but- Sam is pretty good at what he does. ] He clearly thinks you're the right man for the job. [ With a gesture at the shield Sam is barely holding: ] That's why he gave you that.
[ A beat. ] And I've done a lot of arguing with the guy over the years. So. [ Another beat. ] The fact that I'm not fighting this decision means I think he's actually making a good call. [ Punctuated by a shrugged shoulder. ]
Either way, none of us are gonna let Ross just- Arrest you two. [ Sam obviously doesn't deserve it. Bucky doesn't really deserve that either, though admittedly the legality of letting him walk free is... Dicier. But that's a clear point of stress, for them both, so Tony's not exactly raring to bring up the details. ]
[ No, Sam gets that. Weirdly, he wants someone to stop backing this, though. For a moment, Sam looks like he's been slapped, a mixture of utter bewilderment and mild offense. Why is everyone so on board with this? Why is nobody saying 'oh, yikes, maybe not'?
He doesn't quite know hot to wrap his tongue around the words that want to spill out of him, so he swallows them instead. Turns the barbed wire inside instead of lashing out, because why the fuck are these three white men telling him this is his job now? Why is nobody asking him what he wants?
Why did Steve say good-bye to Bucky, but left Sam hanging without a warning only to give him a job, not even to give him a choice?
Sam takes a slow breath, and tries to wipe all that off his features. To adopt the carefully neutral facade he's gotten so good at. If Tony's paid attention, this might be familiar. Sam can be jovial, can be visibly annoyed, can be impassioned - but rarely does he look devastated, sad, or anything in that realm. Too good at locking himself behind a wall. Many of the Avengers tick like that. ]
I need to be able to go home without Ross breathing down my neck. I haven't seen my sister and my nephews in two... [ Sam stops himself. No, that's not right. ] ... in seven years.
[ And there is so much else to think about. So much to fix, so much to work out. ]
However they want to legally deal with Bucky, put me on the hook for it. I'll take personal responsibility, if my name still holds any goodwill at all.
[ He looks away for a moment, debates if he should... but he should. They never got the chance to... Sam takes a step closer, drops his voice. ]
And I'm sorry, Tony. For what it's worth, I wouldn't have sent you after them back then if I'd known.
[ That was a secret Steve kept on Bucky's behalf - a choice Sam disagreed with. For as much as Steve and him were often of a similar mind and a similar moral horizon... that one, they'd have argued over if Sam had been aware. Which likely is exactly why not even he had known. And it's not that he thinks Bucky deserves punishment for things he wasn't in control of - but it's that Tony deserved to know, regardless of whether anyone could foresee the knowledge being weaponized.
Anyway - personal accountability. He believes in that. The words are seven years too late, and on the grand scheme of things, Sam's not the one who fucked anyone else over that badly here. But still. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
For @ironypoisoned
And then... he's... back.
It feels like the blink of an eye, like no time has passed at all. One moment he's here, then he's... not. It's like breathing wrong for a second. It's like walking down the stairs in the dark thinking there's one more step, but hitting the floor too hard. It's like the way his stomach lurches when he drops out of the sky, letting the ground rush up at him like a familiar friend wondering when it'll be his time to collide.
Dying, in the end, felt like it never happened, and that's not nearly as pleasant or comforting as it might sound.
Afterwards, Sam feels... numb, for the most part. He's good at compartmentalising. Good at being there for everyone around him while he's fraying at the edges. He keeps clenching his fingers, willing feeling back into them while he feels like he's about to crumble away again. But he steps up, because it's what he does, and because after the battle there's work to do, him and Steve and Wanda and Bucky are still technically wanted fugitives, and Secretary fucking Ross is sniffing around them like a blood hound while everyone is still trying to get their footing back, and...
He tries to look to the people he spent the last two years with. Except... that was five years ago. He lost five years, just like that, and he doesn't know what happend to Sarah and her kids, he doesn't know if they're okay, he needs to go home, he needs to...
Tony Stark almost died on that battlefield, surviving the final snap by a hair, and Sam still feels sick with how close the man came. Sam remembers yelling at people to move, remembers running while others were standing still, years of pararescue training and work kicking into overdrive, and then other people also moving, and in the end it's him, Bruce, Shuri kneeling over Tony, a flurry of hands and shoddy battlefield work, but Sam's done more with less in the desert, and Shuri has better tech than the Air Force ever had. Sam barely remembers what they did to get Tony through, but he does remember catching the man's eyes at some point and quietly telling him that dying after a cool one-liner wasn't on the menu today.
And then...
Then Sam, later, learns that Natasha Romanoff is dead.
And Vision died five years ago.
So did Loki - not a personal loss for Sam, but one for Thor, so it still hits in its own way.
There is no body for Nat. Sam thinks somebody tells him she led the team, and she saved everyone, and now she's gone, and that's all anyone can bring themselves to say, and they have haunted looks in their eyes, and he can't press, he can't tell them 'Steve and her are all I have left, I need to know what happened to her' because his grief doesn't supersede theirs.
Sam died and came back to life like he'd just blinked his eyes, like his heart had just skipped a single beat, like his breath had caught just for a second, and just like that he's lost five years and several team mates and one of his two closest...
Steve Rogers leaves.
There's no warning, no heads-up - at least not for Sam. Steve just steps on a platform to place the Infinity Stones back in their timelines, but he never returns, and Sam is so close to straight up panic. He thinks he yells at poor Bruce, because they just had services for everyone they lost, because Natasha is dead, and what do you mean Steve is just gone and...
A few minutes later, Sam is given barely an explanation, and he's given a shield that doesn't represent people like him, a job he never asked to have, and he's lost both of his closest friends, the people he spent the last two years with 24/7 except it was five years ago and now they're just... gone. One dead, one left, and at that point, it hardly feels like a difference.
Bucky walks away because the man is a mess, and Secretary Ross is lingering, making unpleasant eyes at both Bucky and Sam because he's still itching for those arrests and Sam takes a few steps through the trees and then he just...
He's no longer holding it together.
The shield hits the ground and Sam takes another two or three steps, puts his back to a tree and sinks down, knees against his chest, hands between the knees because they're shaking badly. His face is ashy, and he feels like throwing up. His eyes are wet, and his fingers are numb, and he's not sure he's breathing right, vision fuzzy at the edges.
He tries to pull it together. It feels too selfish to fall apart like this, not when things need doing. Not when other people have suffered the same losses he has, if not more, not when they need support, not when...
Someone's walking towards him. From far away, Sam thinks his brain registers Tony. Outside of fighting for Tony's life just a day ago, Sam dimly registers that he's last actually spoken to Tony two years ago from inside a cell on the Raft. Ten days on the Raft, and thank god Clint and Scott got plea deals to go home to their families. But oh god, it's not been two years for Tony, has it, it's been seven years.
Tony stops by the shield where Sam just dropped it on the ground, and for a moment they both just look at it on the forest floor. And then they look at each other, and Sam doesn't want to say 'Steve left', so instead... ]
You should be resting, you know.
no subject
Except... Tony looks back down at the shield, resting on the ground, it's red white and blue paint standing out starkly against the greens and browns of the forest. He rolls his bad shoulder - it makes a horrible clicking-popping sound as he does - and decides this, like snapping with the Infinity Stones, was best done like ripping off a Band-Aid: Quickly and without thinking too much about it.
He bends over, fingers scraping up the dirt as he picks the shield up with the arm not currently confined to a sling and walks the few paces over to where Sam's stooped over. ] Think... You mighta dropped this. [ It's another quip, and he hates himself for it a little, picking up the slack in Steve's absence.
Tony blinks rapidly as the realization sinks in. He isn't gonna cry, damn it, but- It was strange, still, losing the last piece of Howard that he'd gotten to keep all these years later. Don't think about it, he orders himself. As usual, he does a terrible job listening, and he inhales sharply, trying not to make it sound like the sniffle it is. ]
oh look matchy icons
Still, Sam doesn't immediately reach for it. He looks at Tony like he wants to ask him not to ask, but he knows that's not fair either.
None of it is, to either of them.
God damnit. ]
Nothing went wrong. [ Sam swallows. ] He... took the stones, and I guess he just... stayed. [ He glances over towards the lake. His own eyes are too shiny, but Sam's always been good at burying his feelings. He doesn't break down on others, he just... he has to be on point. He can't let everyone else around him down just because he feels sad and broken and alone in the world because he lost everyone he'd been close to before he died. So he blows out a slow, steady breath to control his voice. ] He stayed in the past. Got married, grew old. Just... came back for this. [ A vague gesture at the shield. Sam looks devastated, too, despite how much he's trying to hold it together for Tony's sake. ]
uwu
[ Every joke has a kernel of truth to it, but Tony supposes Sam probably is feels some kinda way about Steve just... Ditching. So he should probably keep his own brand of feelings-masking humor to himself.
Of course, Tony is notoriously bad at keeping his mouth shut. ] Still, you'd think he'd at least... [ The arm in the sling, the one not carrying the shield, gesticulates as best it can. ] Do this a bit more, y'know, formally? [ He might not get it, because Tony's about as privileged as a person can get, but being friends with Rhodey for so long has certainly taught him a few lessons. A beat of silence goes by. ] Either way: You need someone to validate this to Ross so you can go Captain America-ing, I got you. [ Because obviously Sam's going to do it. Someone needs to take up the mantle. It might as well be someone who's already an Avenger, and one of Steve's inner circle, and Tony's not so sure he's up for answering to Bucky Barnes just yet. ]
no subject
[ Sam huffs a sound that could have been laugh and died somewhere bitter on the way. He looks away for a moment, blinking a few times, mouth twisting. Shit, but it stings. All of it stings and hurts and weighs on him in places he can't quite figure out, and doesn't necessarily want to discuss. And without offense to Tony, but Sam doesn't like falling apart on anyone at the best of times. ]
I... don't even know.
[ He reaches out. Drops his hands down for a moment, then sighs and takes the shield from Tony. Holds it a bit like it's about to burn him. Nobody has asked him - it feels like everyone is just telling him. The Avengers are scattering to the winds - Thor is leaving for New Asgard and then for space to find himself. Bruce said something about an island. Clint wants to give retirement another go. Wanda is grieving. Rhodey is kinda done, too. There's a whole bunch of people Sam has never seen before the battle, and they all have their own shit to deal with back in space, or other places in the world. Tony... is hurt, and technically retired, too. The Spider Child is gonna go back to being a Spider Child, one would hope.
Where does that leave Sam, other than burdened? He looks down at the shield. ]
I think Ross is still itching to throw me in prison. [ A beat, Tony's words slowly thinking in, and Sam looks startled, as if it hadn't quite settled on him that having the shield thrust upon him meant people expected him to take up the title, too. ] Wait... what?
no subject
[ A beat. ] And I've done a lot of arguing with the guy over the years. So. [ Another beat. ] The fact that I'm not fighting this decision means I think he's actually making a good call. [ Punctuated by a shrugged shoulder. ]
Either way, none of us are gonna let Ross just- Arrest you two. [ Sam obviously doesn't deserve it. Bucky doesn't really deserve that either, though admittedly the legality of letting him walk free is... Dicier. But that's a clear point of stress, for them both, so Tony's not exactly raring to bring up the details. ]
no subject
He doesn't quite know hot to wrap his tongue around the words that want to spill out of him, so he swallows them instead. Turns the barbed wire inside instead of lashing out, because why the fuck are these three white men telling him this is his job now? Why is nobody asking him what he wants?
Why did Steve say good-bye to Bucky, but left Sam hanging without a warning only to give him a job, not even to give him a choice?
Sam takes a slow breath, and tries to wipe all that off his features. To adopt the carefully neutral facade he's gotten so good at. If Tony's paid attention, this might be familiar. Sam can be jovial, can be visibly annoyed, can be impassioned - but rarely does he look devastated, sad, or anything in that realm. Too good at locking himself behind a wall. Many of the Avengers tick like that. ]
I need to be able to go home without Ross breathing down my neck. I haven't seen my sister and my nephews in two... [ Sam stops himself. No, that's not right. ] ... in seven years.
[ And there is so much else to think about. So much to fix, so much to work out. ]
However they want to legally deal with Bucky, put me on the hook for it. I'll take personal responsibility, if my name still holds any goodwill at all.
[ He looks away for a moment, debates if he should... but he should. They never got the chance to... Sam takes a step closer, drops his voice. ]
And I'm sorry, Tony. For what it's worth, I wouldn't have sent you after them back then if I'd known.
[ That was a secret Steve kept on Bucky's behalf - a choice Sam disagreed with. For as much as Steve and him were often of a similar mind and a similar moral horizon... that one, they'd have argued over if Sam had been aware. Which likely is exactly why not even he had known. And it's not that he thinks Bucky deserves punishment for things he wasn't in control of - but it's that Tony deserved to know, regardless of whether anyone could foresee the knowledge being weaponized.
Anyway - personal accountability. He believes in that. The words are seven years too late, and on the grand scheme of things, Sam's not the one who fucked anyone else over that badly here. But still. ]