[PSL] Post-canon TWS | Steve & Sam

[stark_spangled]

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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[sizeofyourbaggage]

"I like sunflowers," Sam informs him, face serious despite the fact that his eyes are glinting in amusement. "Gladioli, if you're getting fancy."

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.