Steve Rogers, aka Captain America (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
stark_spangled) wrote2015-03-22 11:29 pm
stark_spangled) wrote2015-03-22 11:29 pm
Entry tags:
[PSL] Post-canon TWS | Steve & Sam
for sizeofyourbaggage
Steve was ready to go in an hour and fifteen. When the only connections you have scatter or burn to the ground, your only ties to a place can fit easily in a duffle bag slung over your shoulder and some small room in your heart where a half-formed sense of home never got a chance to put down roots. Things were a little different for Sam. He had responsibilities, people who relied on him. They took the day to get ready, and left first thing in the morning. Peggy would be safe from the media buzzards circling her room with her grandkids to look after her, and Steve was glad for that.
Nat was right about the file she gave him. He had it taken apart and spread across the floor of his apartment the night before they left, and then neatly reassembled when he met Sam at Union Station the next morning. Traveling by train was their best option given their renewed celebrity and the fact that Dulles still had air traffic grounded after the incident with the helicarriers. Everything seemed fine. Bags neatly packed. String around the folder tied in a smart knot. Steve was put together, determined and focused. But inside he felt as scattered as the contents of Winter's life strewn across hardwood.
He talked during the trip, answering Sam's questions and forming plans about where they would start -- he even managed some small-talk about music and how the food on the train rated against what he got in the hospital -- but it was always punctuated by moments of silence. He'd go someplace in his mind, brow knit and jaw squared, staring out the window at shapeless land rushing past (not France, or Italy, fields chewed by war and spat up again), but each time he'd blink, smile crookedly, and come up with some sarcastic remark to get conversation moving again. He almost had renewed energy by the time they arrived in Grand Central, despite the declining hour of the day. It's one step closer to the next step, and the next. One step closer to finding Bucky.
"Hope you weren't expecting the Ritz," he says, once they've made it out of the throng and up 42nd. "Since SHIELD isn't footing my bills anymore, we're gonna have to do this on a budget. I figure you won't mind, but I'd hate to get a reputation for being a cheap date."
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There were soldiers there who depended on him, clients who he'd made breakthroughs with, but no one that couldn't be equally well served by one of the other counselors, while he was on sabbatical. It'd been easy enough to arrange it with his supervisor - he hardly ever took vacation or sick days, and everyone at the VA was really understanding about the need for personal time. It probably helped that there was footage of him helping out Captain America and his supervisor could put two and two together.
In the end she'd shrugged and said they kind of owed Steve Rogers 70 years or so worth of support from the VA. Sam didn't tell her that he'd thought the same thing, except about Barnes. Sam called each of his clients personally to explain about the changes, but after that, he was all Steve's.
He didn't push while they were on the train, whenever drew into himself, or into the past, or where ever the hell else he was that wasn't really with Sam on the train. He noticed, of course, Sam'd noticed Steve's disconnect the first time he met him, and he'd have to be blind not to now. But there's a time for pressing and there's a time for letting people get away with covering it up, and the middle of a train isn't the first one.
Sam chuckles at that, hefting his duffle bag over his shoulder as he walks alongside Steve. "I seriously doubt I could even sleep on one of the beds they got there, anyway. You're in luck, man, I'm a pretty damn cheap date, too." He gives a little grin. "Besides, between the run, the breakfast, and taking down a government organization, I figure we're at least on the third or fourth one by now. You can stop pulling out all the stops."
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"Really? Third or fourth?" he says, lips pursed in thought. "I didn't even get you flowers. I guess things really have changed."
Sam's good at what he does, and Steve knows that. It's not just the soldier in him or the pilot, it's the way he reads people; Steve didn't spend long down at the VA, but it was long enough to see that the people there love him. They feel comfortable with him, like Steve does. He would be glad to have a fighter like him watching his back while he does this, but more than anything he's glad it's Sam. Aside from Natasha, he's the one person on this Earth he feels the most comfortable with.
Which is saying something, when you start to think about how long they've really known each other. But Steve hasn't given himself the time or space to think about that too deeply. All he knows is he's glad Sam's here. "I need to make a stop before we head out of the city, so if you wanted to grab something other than deli sandwiches for tonight, now would be a good time."
For the kind of appetite Steve has, he hasn't exactly been eating well lately. The food he got in the hospital while he was recovering was probably the closest thing he's had to a real meal since that breakfast Sam mentioned, but when your own organization has turned against you and your best friend is trying to kill you, that doesn't leave a lot of time for sit-down meals. Steve's focused to a fault, and sometimes it's just easier grabbing something quick.
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Honestly, Sam doesn't really worry about things like the length of time he's known someone any more. Maybe he should, maybe he should take the fact that he's already been willing to do so much with Steve, for Steve, as a sign that he's not quite as well adjusted as he'd maybe thought.
But nah. He knows that after a week of knowing someone you can tell how much they're going to mean to you - how much they already do - and after years of someone being gone, it still feels like only weeks. Time doesn't always mean a lot, in Sam's world. He knows people, and he knows that being with Steve is the first time he's felt like he really had a friend since he got back.
He tilts his head a little at that offer, though, considering. "Depends. Is it the kind of stop you'd really like to do alone, or the kind you wouldn't mind some company for?" If it's the first - well, Sam might want to go anyway, if Steve's not insistent on it. If it's the second, Sam's pretty much already resigned himself to going a while with no home cooking. Might as well start now.