[ 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. ]
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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. ]