A/N: Samtember Day 2 - Today's prompt reads, "Bird Prince- Sam has a special connection to birds, he might even be one! Show off your love for our bird prince." I'll admit I had NO FREAKING CLUE what to do with that, so hopefully this works for you all. Surprise (not)! It's another soulmate AU.

Because of You, I Owe Him a Hundred Bucks - Steph/Sam

It had been happening for so long, that I didn't even remember when it had started. My mom swore that when she brought me out of the hospital, a bird had tried to settle on me. Now I didn't know if that was true or not, but some days it was easy to believe.

I had to be grateful about how long it had taken for the team to catch on. Really, it wasn' all that long, but given that many of them were trained on being observant and one of them could read minds, it had taken more time than I'd had any right to hope it would.

"Is this why you signed up to be on the EXO-7 Falcon team?" Natasha asked lazily one day. "So you could fly with your spirit animals?"

As soon as the words left her mouth, I froze and let out a groan. Then I watched as one by one, the other Avengers looked at the bird that had landed on my shoulder. In turn, they each seemed to remember a series of other times where they'ed seen a similar occurance, and I knew my goose was cooked.

Pun not intended.

"You know, I think you've been preemptively falsely accusing us for months now," Cap said slowly. "A hundred bucks says your soulmate is talking about birds, not us."

"Oh, you're on, Cap!" I retorted, accepting the challenge. "What possible reason could birds have to attack my soulmate. If anything, they'll probably have an affinity for her through association."

Steve's smile was wide, but he took the hand I held out for him to seal the bet, only hesitating slightly to stare at the large raptor perched on my arm before he did so.

Of course, Natasha took a picture, which found its way onto the internet and quickly became a worldwide obsession. Soon there were memes, blogs dedicated to pictures people managed to snap of me when a bird stopped by to use me for a perch, and YouTube channels dedicated to videos of me flying with birds choosing to make a formation around me.

That last one ended up happening more often than I wanted to admit. At least I wasn't a pilot of a jet or plane that had to worry about bird strikes.

I knew the team had side bets running on the issue of my apparent bird magnetism, and sometimes I thought for sure that Steve pushed for events to be outside just to see what would happen.

Because there was almost always at least one bird hovering nearby every time I went outside.

After Ultron, we'd taken some time to gather ourselves when Steve called us to join the team. Captain America and Black Widow had trained us ruthlessly, but by the time they deemed us an actual team, we had a bit of a PR problem. Too much time in the shadows meant people thought we were hiding something, and the public didn't really trust us. And that meant that once we started doing public appearances, we started jamming them into every free moment possible.

With a jet like ours that could go faster than just supersonic, it didn't take long to get anywhere in the world. So we went everywhere in the world.

On our way to New Jersey, there had been plenty of teasing about the location. We were at a fitting location- the Veterans Park in Hamilton Township participating in a Memorial Day Weekend Picnic Meet & Greet that, although not actually in New England, had decided to go for a clambake theme.

Out of everyone on the team, Captain America was easily the most popular Avenger, and always had the longest line of fans waiting to meet him. It worked out well though because he was also the best at glad handing people and politicians. Somehow he never let it show how weary it got; he just kept his smile on. When I asked him about it, he just said that he had a lot of experience during the war and left it at that.

Still, I was doing pretty well for myself, and my line was moving quickly. Most people didn't really know what to say to a so-called superhero, so they would take a picture, ask for an autograph, and move on pretty quickly. Then I saw her coming.

She was a little old woman with steel-grey hair and the loose skin that came with advanced age. She wouldn't have stood out that much if it wasn't for the look in her eyes. Or the fact that she was wearing cut off shorts and what was a skimpy Avengers tank top.

"Well hello there," I said politely as she stepped up. "That's a nice shirt you have on there."

"Why thank you, young man!" She preened. "I bought it for my granddaughter to wear today, but she didn't want to. She said it would make her stand out and she just wanted to blend into the crowd. So I decided to wear it myself! It seemed like a waste otherwise because I couldn't return it on account of I might have bought it from someone who got it after it fell off a truck."

She smacked her teeth in her mouth as she grinned, and I found myself chuckling as I said, "well, we'll just let that be our little secret then, won't we?"

"Oh, aren't you the one!" she said, crowding into my space and I was instantly glad of the fact that I was in my uniform as her hands started ghosting over her body. "Nice and firm!" she pronounced.

"Uhhhhh," I stammered, having no idea what to say to that. Finally I went with, "and where is your granddaughter?"

"She's supposed to be meeting me here, you see, she's a badass bounty hunter and she caught an eye on one of her FTAs. That stands for Failure to Appear, you know. Anyway, she chased after him and left me in line, but I wanted her to meet you, so she promised to come back. Honestly, I don't know what's taking so long! She should have been back by now."

The woman held up her phone, trying to figure out how to take a selfie, and when I leaned in to try to help her out, she took advantage of the opportunity and pinched my butt. Surprised, I jumped back as I heard a woman's voice yell, "Grandma! I saw that! You promised to look but not touch."

I turned to the voice, noticing that silence had fallen around us. I had to cough to cover the smile on my face when I saw the granddaughter. It seemed like some things might run in the family. Limping forward was a brunette who looked a couple inches shorter than me, and she was shoving a big dude in handcuffs in front of her.

"There you are, Baby Girl! Come meet the Falcon!"

As the woman drew closer, I started to smell a distinctly shellfish smell, and that's when it happened. Birds of practically every type started swarming her and pecking at bits of stuff that were all over her. A quick glance over at Steve showed him grinning wide, holding in a laugh in order to be polite.

When she let out an exasperated sound, I turned back to the woman and she yelled, "Excuse me, can you call off your friends?"

Truth be told, I had no idea what she expected me to do because it wasn't like the birds listened to me, but I walked over anyway because I was certain she was my soulmate. As I drew near, the birds flew away, and the woman looked at me with a grateful smile. I knew I had to say something, but I couldn't really think of anything clever. Once the silence had stretched out uncomfortably long, she apologized for bothering me and for her grandmother's behavior and started to leave.

Before she could, I reached out a hand and gently grabbed her shoulder. I blurted out the only thing I could think of, "you can't leave; because of you, I owe him a hundred bucks!"

"I really hate when people bet on me," she said, turning to see who I was pointing at. When she saw Steve wave happily in his full Captain America gear, her jaw dropped. Finally, she said, "out of morbid curiosity, what was the bet?"

"That you would be talking about birds and not any of my teammates," I said. Then I added, "you know I don't actually control them right?"

With a shrug she said, "whatever makes them stop attacking."

"Do you mind if I ask-"

"Clam shells and seaweed," she cut me off to tell me.

I grinned, and threw an arm around her shoulder waving to the team and making it clear I would be back later. Steering her away, I said, "well, that explains it then. What do you say we take this guy to jail?"

"Don't you have to do whatever this thing is?"

"Nah, the team can handle it for me. After all, it isn't every day I meet my soulmate."

She gave me a beautiful smile at that, and leaned into me. Then she stopped and turned and pulled my head down for a kiss. It went on for a couple seconds before I realized she had both her hands on me and heard Natasha yelling at me.

"Whoops," I said, then flung my wings out and flew over to where her skip was running away. I swooped down, picked him up, and took him back over to Steph. "At least he's lighter than Cap," I said.

"I heard that!" Steve yelled, and I just shook my head and continued to guide Steph further away from my crazy team.

Oddly enough, the birds never bothered me again after that day.