Work Text:
"My girlfriend moved out. She's going to spend some time at her sister's, until she works some things out." The woman's voice is steady, but Sam can see the signs underneath, the blankness of her expression, the way her fingers clench and unclench. Flores has been coming to group for about a month, and this is the first time she's said anything. A murmur of sympathy goes through a room, a few heads nodding in understanding.
"That's got to be rough." Sam leans forward, hands loosely clasped between his knees. "What about you? Who do you have?"
Flores shakes her head. "My mom. I can't—what am I gonna say? I hit her. I'd've left too."
"What happened?" Sam doesn't make excuses for her, just pushes open the door.
"I was in the kitchen. It was a bad day, you know? It was the day that SUV blew up downtown, the one the cops were chasing." Everyone in the circle nods. Car explosions in downtown DC—that hits too close to home for everybody here. "On the news they were saying it was a terrorist, and I just—it was a bad day. I was jumpy."
'Jumpy' is probably a typical soldier understatement, but Sam nods.
"I was fixing dinner when she got home from work and I just, I got the shakes. She came in to check on me. I didn't hear her at first, then all of a sudden someone was behind me and—" The room is silent. Flores draws a shaky breath. "I punched her." She starts to cry in angry, tearless sobs. Holmes, the guy next to her, offers her the tissue box and she snatches a few out like she'd rather rip them to pieces.
"Did you know it was her?" Sam asks quietly.
"Who else was it gonna be, man? Of course I did." She wipes at her face in sharp swipes.
"But did you, though?" One of the other guys, who's been coming to the group as long as Sam's been running it, speaks up.
She glares at him the way she won't glare at Sam. "I know what you're trying to get me to say and it's bullshit."
"Tell me what you were hearing when it happened," Sam says.
"Nothing, just the TV. This is stupid—"
"Smell anything different?"
"No, I was just cooking some onions. They were really strong, the whole kitchen smelled like fried onions."
"Where else did you smell that?" Sam treads carefully. If he's wrong, if he pushes too hard, she'll slam shut and not talk to them for another month.
Flores doesn't say anything for a long time, then finally mutters, "God damn it." She sighs. "The marketplace in Basra. We were joking that it was making us hungry, and then this kid blew himself up."
"Were you thinking of that day?" Sam gives another small nudge.
The tears that didn't fall earlier make her dark eyes shine under the fluorescent lights. "I guess maybe." The room is quiet but charged, the only sound of her breathing and the others occasionally shifting in their seats. These are the moments, when someone is able to stop fucking around, stop hiding, stop making excuses, and really look at and sort through the things that came back with them on the transport plane. It's almost sacred. "I was in danger," she says. "That's what I was thinking."
"And then someone touched you," Sam says.
"So I fought."
Sam spends the rest of the hour talking about fight or flight reactions—they know, but knowing and believing are never the same thing, so he reminds them when he can.
#
On his way home, he stops at a little mom and pop store to pick up milk and bread. There's a squeal of brakes, and pedestrians scramble out of the way of a white panel van that barrels up onto the sidewalk. Two masked men leap out and grab a middle-aged white guy. He yells and kicks, and there are a few screams from the onlookers. But nobody does anything.
Sam launches himself at the trio. "Hey, let him go!" He grabs the victim and kicks one of the masked guys in the chest, spinning him back. He throws the guy he's trying to rescue clear, and turns to the second guy in time to see a pistol in his hand. He's got no cover, so he aims another kick at the guy's hand and hopes it connects. The gun goes flying, and Sam squares himself for a fight.
He doesn't get one. The first guy gets off a wild shot in Sam's direction before leaping back into the van. Second guy bolts for the van too, and Sam is left with the white guy. He's doubled over, his hands on his knees.
"You okay, man?" Sam asks.
"Y-yeah." His eyes are wild as he looks up and down the street, as if someone is going to come roaring back.
Sam offers him a hand. "What's your name?"
"Chris McCarthy."
"Sam Wilson." His hand is clammy against Sam's, but it's a strong hand. "Any idea what that was about? We should call the cops if someone else hasn't."
"Oh no, no need to call them," McCarthy says. "I'm fine."
Sam spots the guy's wallet lying on the street and picks it up. It's overstuffed and things spill out, including a photo ID for Agent Christopher McCarthy, SHIELD. Did he just witness some sort of spy thing?
He's heard rumors about SHIELD. Most people dismiss it as a conspiracy nut's dream, but Sam's seen a few things, and knows a few people. He's been sure all along that even if something called SHIELD didn't exist, something like it did. There's been too much weird shit going on down through the years.
McCarthy snatches his things back before Sam can look further. "Thanks for helping out though."
"You gonna be okay to get home?" Sam asks, because he has to.
"Yeah." McCarthy lifts his suit jacket to show the holster under his arm. "They won't get the drop on me if they try again."
Sam takes a step back, hands raised. "All right. Be safe, man."
He's halfway home before he realizes he forgot the store. Whatever, it'll keep. He can't shake a tingle at the back of his neck. He keeps checking in his rearview for signs that someone's tailing him, but he never sees anything. The feeling vanishes a block away from his apartment. It's not reassuring in the slightest.
When he locks up that night, he's careful, and spends some time watching the activity on the street. His neighborhood's not a bad one, and strangers tend to stick out. There's nothing out there that pings his radar.
His sleep is restless. For the first time in months, he has combat dreams: nothing bad enough to wake him, nothing nightmarish, just dreams of waiting and snatches of moments in the air, moments when he felt alive and whole and useful.
By the time he gets to his first group the next afternoon, he's about half a cup of coffee away from getting the shakes—but at least he's not sleepwalking anymore.
There are a couple of new guys in his officers' group. They're an older crowd, and every once in a while a particularly well-known face will show up. Being a public figure is no insulation against nightmares and combat-related stress. Today's familiar face makes Sam sit up a little straighter, and he prays that he doesn't make an ass of himself.
They go around the circle to introduce themselves. The man just says "James", and everyone nods, like they don't all know that Colonel James Rhodes a.k.a. War Machine is sitting in and looking for some support.
It's a long, quiet group. The officers are always the hardest to crack. Nobody wants to be the first to admit they need something. It's like they think showing up is the part that will fix everything. Sam spends the hour talking about the personal responsibility each of them has to take care of their shit—if he can convince them that dealing with it is a job to be done rather than admission of weakness, he can pry the door open.
Near the end of their time, one Air Force major admits to having trouble sleeping. It's a start. A small one, but Sam will take it.
#
There are times Rhodey wishes he were the type of man who appreciated the value of a confidante, that he weren't so reliant on his own counsel. Not long ago, he would have considered talking to Pepper Potts, but he's seen the cautious way she looks at him lately. It's the way everyone seems to be looking at everyone else these days. It's a damned rats' nest. Rhodey knows things he's not supposed to know, but even he doesn't fully understand what's happening inside SHIELD.
Even not knowing details, it's enough to know that things are bad and getting worse. Nobody buys the story that three experimental helicarriers crashed in a testing accident over the Potomac: not the military, not the press, and sure as hell not the public. Rumors of people disappearing or dying are still easily dismissed, but that's just a matter of time. Rhodey knows a handful of the missing himself.
So he's got a list he keeps in his head. A list of what, he's not really sure yet.
Maybe it was fate that put Sam Wilson in a position to save Chris McCarthy's sorry ass, but there were at least a dozen onlookers that didn't do a damned thing, and fate didn't make Wilson throw himself at two armed men for someone he didn't know. Wilson was already on the list, based on his unique experience as a parajumper and mission report after mission report detailing his bravery—or recklessness, depending on who you asked.
So Rhodey had to come and see the man for himself. Watching him talk to the other men and women in the group, he can see the leadership potential for himself. It's enough to make up his mind.
Sam Wilson is exactly the man he needs for the job he has in mind.
#
Late night AM radio, one month later:
“It’s 3:42 am and you’re listening to the Les Myers Show on WDCT, DC’s All Talk All The Time radio station. We’ve been talking about some of the stranger things happening around town the past couple of weeks. We’ve seen a spike in missing persons reports, unusual deaths, and no one seems to be doing anything about it. What’s your take, Washingtonians? The phone lines are open.”
“Les! Man, great to finally talk to you. This is Jerry over in Arlington. Listen, I don’t know what’s going on, but I saw the damnedest thing two days ago. One of those big drones was overhead, like they’ve been doing lately, and from outta nowhere, this guy flies—he was flying, Les, I swear ta god—and knocks some old guy outta the way, scoops him up and sets up down about twenty yards off. Place where the guy was standing? Burnt to a crisp…”
"A flying man huh? Thanks Jerry. Well, that sure wouldn't be the weirdest thing that's happened around DC lately…"
From the website forum DCStreets.com:
Cain (SiteMod) 8/24/2013, 9:32am
Okay, everybody’s seen him, but nobody’s talking about him. You know who I mean: the brother with the goggles and the wings. This guy:
What’s your story? Did you see him? Did your great-aunt’s half-brother get rescued from a mugging? What about the rumors that he's working for the government, or that he's a terrorist? Come on, let's start talking about this guy, let’s figure out who the hell he is.
ShebasQueen (ProUser) 8/24/2013 9:40am
Terrorist my ass. Those drones are run by the real terrorists. Whoever this dude is, he's standing up to them. People are scared around here. Policing drones? That's bullshit. My cousin works at the State Department and he says they've lost four people this month in his department alone to drone hits. What the hell is going on?
AnonymousUser () 8/24/2013 9:43am
I'm in the Air Force and my ass is shitcanned if this gets traced to me, but: we don't know what the drones are either. My money's on SHIELD. I don't know what they're doing, but they're taking out civilians and we're looking the other way.
@Cain: Can't be 100 percent from the picture, but it looks like your guy is flying thanks to the AF prototype that parajumpers sometimes use, an EXO-7 Falcon.
Cain (SiteMod) 8/24/13, 9:45am
Thanks, man, stay safe out there.
Falcon, huh? let's hope he's on our side.