Characters: Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson, Natasha Romanoff, Laura Barton, Wanda Maximoff, Helen Cho & Vision
Pairing(s): Steve Rogers/Sam Wilson
Tags/Warnings: Racism, internalizing feelings, homophobia, erasure, press & tabloids
The first one to bring it to his attention was Natasha.
Steve and Sam had been together officially for four months at the time, having known each other longer at that point. They were in their own bubble of blissful happiness. They weren't too concerned with outside viewers beyond those they loved and cared for. Steve was sure Sam's sister knew but didn't know about his brother or mother. Natasha and Peggy knew, the other Avengers knew to a certain extent and that was enough. However, when Steve came home and saw Sam and Natasha leaning over the table reviewing something, he re-evaluated that thought.
At first when he saw them he thought it might be something to do with a new lead on Bucky but as he got closer he saw it was actually a magazine. He rolled his eyes and went about putting away the food he had bought.
"Why do you guys read that junk? It's all embellished inaccuracies anyway."
"Can't argue that." Sam said. His voice sounded strange and it made Steve turn. He studied his boyfriend's face. It was a strange mixture of amusement and annoyance.
"What are you guys reading?" He asked, looking to Natasha. She glanced at Sam before clearing her throat and reading the magazine in a clear tone.
"'Oftentimes in our society today, we see how much men shy away from showing affection towards each other with the fear of stirring up homoerotic theories about the nature of their relationship. The same cannot be said for our resident man-out-of-time, Steve Rogers, who was seen recently on the streets of Harlem getting touchy-feely with his live-in guy pal, Sam Wilson.' I personally love the next two lines a lot. 'The two are clearly comfortable with each other as any two dudes kicking back and taking a load off would be. Kudos to Cap for breaking through the stereotype and double standard set forth in modern society about men who stave away affection for fear of having their sexual orientation questioned.'"
"I don't... I... are you serious?" Steve said, gobsmacked.
"I can't even find the strength to be upset. I'm more amused than anything else at how much they're trying to make sure we're seen in a heterosexual, platonic light. 'Two dudes kicking it back and taking a load off.' How desperate were they?"
"I'm partial to the 'live-in guy pal' part." Clint said, suddenly dropping into the kitchen from a ceiling panel. Steve didn't bother being surprised.
"Like, guy-pal, when did that become a thing? It's like they looked in a thesaurus for the closest words to 'boy' and 'friend' instead of just saying boyfriend." Clint commented to the room at large before he started raiding Sam's fridge. Sam's fridge. If anyone was squatting it was Steve and he said as much.
"I don't care what they think of me. I know who I am." Sam said. Steve believed that but there was something else underneath that. Steve didn't want to mention it in front of Clint and Natasha so he didn't say anything until later.
"Are you sure you're okay?" Steve asked as they were getting ready for bed later. Sam looked at him with confusion.
"About the whole tabloids thing."
"Oh that, I'm honestly not thinking about it anymore. So the whole world or at least readers of that tabloid thinks we're affectionate buddies? Whatever, it's fine. I'd rather not have my personal life splashed over a spread sheet anyway." Sam sounded sincere but there was still something else there.
"Are you sure? Because I can make a statement."
"Don't. I'd rather my family not find out that way."
"They don't know yet?" Something in Steve's voice must have sounded wounded by that because Sam was quick to cradle his face and look at him reassuringly.
"Sarah knows and Gideon's wife Rosita knows but Gideon's on jury duty. Must be pretty serious because they're on a strict no-outside-contact rule. Can't even use the internet, let alone a phone. As for Mom, she's on a Caribbean cruise with some people from church. No signal."
"Oh."
"I'm not embarrassed to be with you, Steve. If anything I'm happy with having you to myself for a while longer before the hounds descend." Steve let it go as Sam moved forward and pressed a chaste kiss to his lips before laying down. Steve flicked off the lamp and cuddled close to Sam in the bed.
Steve had dealt with hiding his relationships with men for most of his life. In this time period it wasn't as bad as before, but it wasn't always safe either. He could protect himself and Sam from any crazies who got a little too fanatical but he felt like he was missing something. It didn't feel like it was just about him liking men, but maybe Sam was right. It was just one stupid tabloid anyway. It was probably no big deal.
The second person to bring it to his attention was Laura.
She was a lovely person really. Steve felt bad for imposing a team of wounded, mentally fucked up superheroes on her household but she had taken it in stride. She made tea for them and even baked cookies. The kids were perfectly respectful but also took all of their minds off the visions they all just had. It made Steve wonder why Clint insisted on hiding in Sam's ceiling when he had this great family. Then again, Steve might feel just the slightest bit envious, especially after that vision of Peggy. He knew he probably wouldn't get to settle down the way Clint had settled down. He and Sam probably wouldn't get to live in solitude and be married with kids because the war was never truly over, there was always the next monster to fight. He and Sam were soldiers, they would always feel the call to fight.
Steve snapped himself out of his thoughts. He and Sam had been in a relationship for less than a year and already he was thinking about marriage and kids. He needed to get it together.
"Hey Captain Rogers." Steve looked up from his spot on the porch where he sat watching Tony fiddling around with the Barton's tractor. When he looked over Laura was smiling at him from the doorway, her hand rubbing her swollen belly.
"You can just call me Steve, Mrs. Barton."
"In that case Laura is fine. I just showed the others to their room. I was going to show you to yours as well."
"Oh, thank you Mrs. Ba... Laura." She chuckled at his little slip up before she hesitated. She seemed to be debating something in her head before she made her decision.
"Are you going to be by yourself or should I show you to one of our larger guest bedrooms?" Steve looked at her with confusion.
"Uh, this is going to be embarrassing if it's just gossip from some trash magazine, which it probably is but, um, I read that you and Tony are rather... intimate? So, if you want, I could set up a room for you two."
"I'm sorry, what?" Steve asked incredulously.
"Well..." Laura said, shrugging helplessly.
"Me and Tony? As in Tony Stark? Me and Ton..." Steve trailed off, chuckling a little to himself, because what?
"I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you did not share a passionate kiss with Cary Grant or a childhood romance with Bucky Barnes."
"Cary Grant was a fine actor but I've never met him and Buck and I were only ever friends. We were practically brothers. Us being anything else would be weird but I could at least understand people thinking that better than I can understand thinking I was with Tony of all people. I love the guy but if I had to be in a relationship with him, I'd strangle him. I don't know how Pepper or Rhodey deal with him."
"Yeah, I wasn't exactly getting couple vibes from you and Mr. Stark but I didn't want to assume anything. Color me embarrassed." Laura said, shaking her head while her cheeks bloomed slightly red.
"Clint doesn't tell you much about us, does he?" Steve asked.
"He is frustratingly quiet on that front. Spy training and all. But that's okay because Natasha tells me all her secrets before she tells him and she gives me a week-long grace period to lord it over him." Steve chuckled as he followed Laura to a guest room. He thanked her and sat down on the bed, shaking his head a little and still laughing at the sheer ridiculousness of what he just heard but after a moment he became confused. If tabloids were perpetrating him in a relationship with Tony and Bucky and even friggin' Cary Grant, why were they so adamant about him being just friends with Sam when he was practically with him all the time? They had to have gotten some candid pictures of them in compromising positions somewhere along the line. Steve wasn't always subtle when it came to his attraction to his boyfriend or their PDA. Something about all of this was off.
Later on when Steve had settled in his designated room, his mind racing through the day, he still couldn't quite hold back the chuckle at the thought of him and Tony together. Who the hell's idea was that? He snapped from his thoughts as his phone rang in his pocket. He pulled it out and smiled as the caller ID told him it was Sam.
"Hey, how's Tokyo?" Steve asked with a smile.
"A visual orgasm. I think I'm gonna have a seizure before I leave but the McDonald's here is amazing. I was there when I saw the footage of the Hulk tearing up Johannesburg." Sam replied.
"New hostile, she gives visions, not fun." Steve said, giving the cliffnotes version.
"Sounds like it sucks."
"It did but it also didn't." Steve's feelings on seeing Peggy in that vision and getting to dance with her finally were still conflicting.
"You wanna talk about it?"
"Not over the phone, no."
"Okay."
"Okay."
"Visions notwithstanding, how was the rest of your day?"
"We met Clint's wife."
"Clint has a wife?" Sam asked dubiously.
"And kids."
"Who would marry that birdbrain, let alone have kids with him? The dude practically subsists on coffee and pizza."
"She's actually a very nice lady. She made us chocolate chip cookies and they were almost as good as yours, almost."
"Blasphemy." Steve chuckled at Sam's mock offended tone before he sobered up.
"Except..."
"Except what?"
"Except she seemed to be under the impression that I was in a relationship with Tony. Can you believe that?"
"Really?" Sam's voice sounded weird, like it had when Natasha showed them the magazine.
"Yeah. I think she got the idea from some magazine. Apparently it also mentioned something about a past relationship with Bucky." Steve said, listening closely to Sam's reaction to see if he already knew about these rumors.
"How about that?"
"Sam..." Steve sighed, trailing off.
"Steve?"
"I can just make a statement."
"I said I don't want that."
"I know you said that but you knew about these rumors, didn't you? What else are they saying about my love life that you don't want me to know about?"
"It doesn't matter what they're saying because it's bullshit."
"It does matter because you're internalizing it and you're the one who always calls me out when I do shit like that."
"Steve, I'm fine with it. If tabloids want to dedicate a monthly section to your turbulent secret romance with Tony Stark or the tragic romance worthy of a Nicholas Sparks novel you apparently shared with Bucky then whatever. It doesn't matter because I know you're with me and not with them."
"Sam-"
"I don't want to talk about this anymore. I want to focus on finding Bucky and you should focus on making sure Skynet 2.0 doesn't destroy the world. I'll call you after all of this is done." Steve tried to stop him from hanging up but Sam was already gone.
He tried not to dwell on the conversation over the next few days. He didn't really have time to anyway, what with Tony's creations dropping cities out of the sky. If Steve and Tony were in a relationship this shit wouldn't be happening. Then again, he wouldn't really be able to stop Tony any better than Pepper or Rhodey could. Steve really wished they were the ones in a lab with Stark and not Bruce because at least they would know better than to let him carry on this mission, no matter his noble intentions. This wasn't how he pictured his weekend: carrying a dead 19-year old onto a rescue ship while his sister was inconsolable and their home was reduced to rubble around them.
When they got stateside again and Sam was standing in the Tower alongside Maria, Steve didn't hesitate to run to him and wrapped his arms around his shoulders, completely disregarding the spat they had over the phone. Sam hugged him back without hesitation.
"I love you." Steve whispered in his ear. It was the first time he said it aloud but he knew that Sam knew already. Sam held him even tighter and Steve let everything else fall away. In that moment he didn't care if the world perpetrated him as something he wasn't because he was in Sam's arms and that mattered more than anything else.
At least until the next time.
The next person to bring it to their attention was Wanda.
The New Avengers had been a team for some time at that point. Steve, Sam, Natasha, Wanda, Rhodey and Vision worked more like a well-oiled machine than just a group of individuals. Maria called them a super-basketball team. They got along well outside of the fighting as well. Tony still visited a lot, mostly to see Rhodey. Clint popped in with the kids and his wife every once in a while, though Steve thought he popped up a little too often for a man with a family. If Laura was to be believed it was because Clint didn't want to admit that the bathroom remodel he started was a bust and he needed help. Helen visited all the time, most of the time to talk with Vision about her work but also to utilize the facilities and spend time with Wanda and Natasha who had befriended her.
Steve liked the background noise the constant moving parts in the compound provided, even though he much preferred Sam's apartment in DC to the complex in upstate New York. He and Sam took a week and went back to DC to relax and acclimate to this new place in their lives. It was good for both of them to not deal with the explosions and the bad guys and the constant questions from the government and the public at large about their abilities and their necessity and their existence on a whole. When they got back, the complex didn't seem quite as unwelcoming as before. They could always take time again and go back to DC if anything, so they settled right back into their regularly scheduled programming. The thought that anyone might have been watching them and taking pictures hadn't even crossed Steve's mind. He didn't really think of himself as a celebrity. He didn't think he'd have paparazzi hiding in his garden and going through his garbage but when Wanda slapped down a copy of some nameless tabloid on the counter one morning Steve was proven wrong.
"Have you read this?" She asked, her accent thicker than usual, a sign of her anger. Steve, Sam, Helen and Vision who were in the kitchen eating breakfast (well Vision didn't need to eat) looked at the magazine page she had slapped down. The title of the feature was Catches of the Week, a column for freelance photographers who sold pictures of celebrities that they managed to capture on the fly. Steve looked over the page and saw two pictures of himself with Sam. One showed a full length picture of them walking down the street hand in hand and the other showed them from the waist up with Sam's arms wrapped around his hips and Steve with an arm over his shoulders, pressing a kiss to Sam's forehead. It looked like they had just come off a run or possibly from the gym as Steve donned sweats and a t-shirt and Sam had his basketball shorts on with his army sweatshirt.
"It appears you were watched while on your vacation." Vision said causing Wanda to sigh with annoyance about his obliviousness.
"It isn't the pictures, it's what they said. 'Captain America was spotted with buddy and former roommate Sam Wilson getting close outside of a Jamba Juice. The Captain has been known to show public displays of affections to his friends. #Friendshipgoals.'"
"Friendship goals?" Helen reiterated, looking around at the room to see their reactions. Steve couldn't quite hold back his annoyance and anger and looked towards Sam. He seemed serene but there was something in his eyes that rubbed Steve the wrong way. Vision was mostly blank but Helen looked incredulous and upset as well. Wanda seemed to be seething.
"Friendship? What does this mean?! Why are they… I don't… I do not understand." Sam looked at Wanda somewhat sympathetically, which just made Steve fall more in love with him really.
"I know. It's just how people are. They're going to interpret things their own way."
"But if you are in love, and you are obviously, why don't they just say it?"
"They probably just don't want to admit that Captain America is interested in men. It hurts their delicate sensibilities." Wanda frowned deeply.
"But I have seen magazines talking about Steve and Tony and Steve with his friend Bucky. Why don't they talk about Sam as anything but a friend?"
"People will jump through hoops to ignore what's in their face if they don't want to see it, especially something like this." Helen said quietly. It hit Steve all at once what exactly it was Helen was implying. He had been missing something so obvious lately and the realization only brought on a new anger.
"Those assholes!" Steve said through gritted teeth, slamming his fist on the table and causing a crack to form in the wood. The other four occupants jumped back, startled at his sudden exclamation.
"Steve, you wanna calm down?" Sam said in a careful tone, watching him cautiously.
"How could I have been this blind? How could I be this stupid and not see it? You've been dealing with it alone this whole time, and probably not for the first time, right?" Steve said to himself, turning to Sam in the middle of his musing. Sam looked at him with confusion before realization dawned on him and he sighed. He stood up from the kitchen table and motioned for Steve to follow him so they could talk in private. They walked to Steve's room and Sam requested Jocasta, the complex AI soundproof the room before turning to Steve.
"Don't do anything."
"Sam, they don't want to admit we're in a relationship because you're Black. What do you mean don't do anything about it!? This is not okay. It's supposed to be better now. I mean, I'm not foolish enough to think racism doesn't exist anymore but to the point that they really can't just admit that we're together."
"That's not the reason behind all of this."
"Sam-"
"I know you want to protect me and I know you think because I'm not a supersoldier that I'm made of glass but I'm not. I deal with this shit all the time. Going to the store and being followed, being pulled over by police for no reason, someone crossing the street when they see me coming. People being casually racist to my face or behind my back isn't going to hurt me because I'm stronger than that. I can handle this and people being casually homophobic to my face also isn't going to hurt me because I've got thicker skin than that. And not all of the people who read and believe that crap is racist or homophobic, not even all the people who write that crap are, they're just-"
"Sam, don't defend them. It's not your job to, not when they treat you like you're not... like you're not the most important person to me. Like you haven't dragged me back from some of the darkest places I've ever been. Like you're not one of the best things to ever happen to me." Steve studied Sam and he could tell his walls were up but Steve needed to get past them because he knew this was hurting the man he loved. He couldn't stand by and not do anything about it.
"This is not okay, Sam. It is not okay for them to erase you like you don't mean anything to me, like you're not a hero, like you're not-"
"Stop! Just stop, Steve! God, I said I'm fine with it so I'm fine. I don't care if they write dissertations about you being with Tony or Bucky or Natasha or even friggin' Clint and everyone else under the sun besides me. I don't care if they write odes to our "affectionate friendship". I don't care if that trash conspiracy magazine runs one more editorial about me secretly being a HYDRA agent and how I'm plotting against you. It doesn't matter if whenever they mention me in Avengers articles they say... they say that... they say that I'm a former criminal because of my juvie record after Dad died... and completely forget about my years of service in the military even though I... lost Riley and..." Sam gasped between his last few sentences and Steve watched as he broke down before moving forward to embrace him but Sam held a hand out stopping him.
"No! I can handle this. I don't need you to be my savior, Steve. I'm used to this, I can handle this." Steve smiled sadly at him, feeling a tear fall down his cheek.
"The thing is you shouldn't have to be used to it. You shouldn't be dealing with this, definitely not alone. We're together which means we're partners, in here and out there. It's us. You shouldn't be afraid to tell me about all the crap being dumped on because it's us. It's us, Sam. Us against them. I will stand by you through whatever you decide to do but you don't do this alone. I know you're strong and you're brave and smart and compassionate and loyal to a fault sometimes, but that doesn't mean that you don't deserve support from your friends and the people who love you. As your boyfriend, I am failing if I am not weathering this bullshit by your side. When we got together, you didn't complain once at all of my baggage and all of my crap. I would think the Nazi death cult chasing us and the brainwashed best friend was enough to dump on you without the added bonus of racist, homophobic assholes tearing you down too but apparently not. I don't know why you're still with me, I'm just... but what I do know is that I'm not going let this keep happening. I'm making a statement."
"Steve-"
"We are making it together. Once and for all, we are setting the record straight and I don't want to hear anymore bullshit after this. The next person that so much as looks at you sideways is going to find out how patriotic my fist is." Sam chuckled wetly, sniffling as his tears still fell but at a slower rate now.
"What? You going to throw your mighty shield, bring all your foes to yield?"
"You know it. That godawful cartoon got something right at least." Sam chuckled again and looked down, shaking his head. Steve walked over to him lifting his head up so their eyes met.
"I love you. You shouldn't be with me and have to deal with the peanut gallery heckling at you the whole time." Sam nodded as Steve wiped the tears from his cheeks with his thumb.
"I love you too. We can make a statement together but I decide what we say and... maybe we can have an interview with a reporter of my choice. I can get a good list from Rhodey. It won't fix everything, you know? People will still talk."
"If they talk after that then we know why. Not that we don't know why now."
"Steve."
"Fine, I'll give them the benefit of a doubt because you want me to but only because you want me to." Sam nodded and then closed his eyes, leaning close to press their lips together. Steve didn't care about the salty tang their tears created, he just savored the lips of the man he loved even if the world didn't accept him.