A/N: Again I've never seen the TV show Marvel makes which includes, I'm sure, a totally different backstory for Cloak and Dagger, but I'm going with close to the comic version. I know not much was detailed last chapter, but it gets better in this one.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE—April 2039
"They called it Regulating," Bruce announced, rewinding the faint footage from the second floor of the Wakandan Annex Lab, "according to the recovered video research from Aldrich Killian—well, the military, really." He smirked, looking quickly back at Bucky, adding "Tony thinks I wasn't listening, which I wasn't for part—you get it, he's very long-winded."
"He's not the only one," Bucky grumbled, eyes fixed on the screen. Bruce played it again.
Two grainy figures in the corner of the frame, Bucky and Samantha, scuffled as she tried to avoid riding the motorcycle. The light Sam emitted grew brighter until his own figure was blotted out until smack—the video fell gray. The moment passed, and the absolute white that replaced it lasted much longer. Eventually, the white faded to reveal Sam standing with her arm out, legs apart and planted. She remained standing only a few seconds longer before collapsing. Her body tumbled in the receding water, covering her in mud, Bucky's legs slid into the top of frame before catching against the earth. The picture went blurry as the fog of the freshly evaporated sea descended. There was, however, a clearly visible, irregular line where the thick glass of the building's window had melted in the bottom corner near Sam.
Bruce stopped the footage. "Except when Extremis soldiers couldn't Regulate, their bodies incinerated themselves and anything around them. This—" he waved his arm through the projection, "—she's controlling—well, aiming it, I think. And she survived obviously, which means this is something new." The doctor, jumpy with unanswered questions, uneasy since Bucky first told him they were coming back with 'complications,' shuffled over to another desk to pull up a different file. "I keep trying to get a signal to Tony's suit, but it's always garbled so far. Shuri didn't seem to know much about Sam's physiological alterations." Banner rubbed his temple. "We are gonna need more than a little—I mean, the bullshit this girl did to herself…"
Bucky turned towards Banner's ominously lowering voice. He had not heard Hulk's deeper octave come out of Bruce in years. Bucky watched his friend hold his breath as he willed the sickly green hue to bury itself deep inside again. Bucky could relate to the bloom of anger and the sting of helplessness when faced with the problem of Samantha Stark.
Banner slammed a flesh-colored fist down, rattling some equipment. "I shouldn't have sent her to Wakanda."
"Doc, I think she did part of this before we left." And the rest is probably my fault, he added internally. "It's not something you could control."
Bruce peered up at Bucky over the thin rims of his glasses. "In which case, biologically speaking, Sam Stark has been gone for a while."
Bucky swallowed hard. He knew that to be true, deep down, but he couldn't shake Tony's face, resigned to walk into an ocean with a king out for blood all for hope that his daughter would remain safe. Bucky had already failed him because there was no Sam to protect, not the Sam Tony knew. Someone, something else lay in the infirmary, and it was his fault. It was Bucky's choice to take her out before Shuri could come up with a plan. He took advantage of Sam's interest in replacing his arm instead of her own health. He paid so little attention to her when she needed to be pulled back from the edge; Sam thought it more important to fix her scars then to live, thought fixing Bucky's scars and self-confidence was worth what was left of her life. How could he have missed it? Bucky Barnes, the King of Self-Sacrifice, the epitome of a life forfeit, overlooked the signs of giving up.
His gut coiled uncomfortably remembering his life after Hydra before Steve found him in Romania. Bucky spoke to no one unless absolutely necessary. He bartered to live in a shitty apartment by doing maintenance for the landlord. He helped tenants move their furniture and heavy boxes in and out for a little cash in order to buy food. He rotated between food stalls at different markets so that no one saw him enough to recognize him. Most of his downtime was consumed by writing in notebooks, writing everything he could remember about who he was and what he had done since. At night, he planned his escape if Hydra should find him. He even had three plans for his own termination, if the choice was be captured again or die. That life was what he had 'woken' up to, and it was barely a life at all.
Bucky tasted acid at the memory. Bruce remained hunched over the metallic table, steadying his breath.
"So," Bucky tossed into the silence, "we wait until she wakes up?"
"Yeah," Bruce threw up his hands, "then what?"
Bucky had no answer for the doctor this time.
Sam heard music in the darkness. Her mouth was unbearably dry, the fibers of her skin and muscle braided tight down the length of her throat. It wasn't just her head that throbbed, but her whole body felt shrunken, clenched against her skeleton. Her brain was filled with fog and fire.
Sam opened her eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling. This was not the tower.
"Hey," Sam heard off to her right, turning to see a young blond woman rise from a chair against the other wall. "You're ok." The infirmary of New York Headquarters was quiet, as it was when she came to wake Sam Wilson, as it was when she recovered from glass cuts and electric burns when she was four. The music was much faster than those times, heavier, full of angst and screaming but at a low volume.
The air in the room: she could feel it flow across her forearms. The sheets beneath her calves, she could feel each fiber of thread. The input of feeling overwhelmed her, and Sam didn't realize she was squirming until the voice put a firm hand against her stomach.
"Calm down," a blond girl leaned over her to say, trying to catch her gaze as Sam's focus shot to place after place in the room. "Samantha, I'm Tandy, and you're safe here." The blond placed her other hand against Sam's forehead.
"Why—" was all Sam could push through her desert mouth. She gently tensed her abs to hint that she wanted to sit up. She kept looking around until staring only at each tiny feature of the new face. He used it, didn't he? The words wouldn't come out. Missy knew I would need it. Sam mimicked sticking a needle in her arm and pressing the plunger, hoping the question in her eyes made it clearer.
"Sam, slow," Tandy tried, corralling her with skinny little arms. "Do you want me to get the nurse?" The girl stopped Sam before she could hop off the bed, trying to swat the restraining arms away before two lights stopped her.
Her own arm was red-orange and glowing. So he did use it, and I don't feel sick anymore. Why do I feel so heavy? Why are Tandy's hands shining white? A gentle peace flowed from Tandy's arms into Sam. The razor cuts of air against her and the scratch of her throat dulled.
"Are you Extremis, too?"
"No," Tandy smiled, "something else did this to us."
Sam's mind went blank of her questions, filled with the warmth. How long has it been? A few days? How long did the proliferation take? Where's my tablet? Phone? Where's Missy?
"What do you remember?" Tandy asked calmly, her white hands growing brighter while Sam's returned to beige.
"I—I fell in the forest." Tandy soothing touch smothered the fire in Sam's mind and body, but the fog persisted "I think…"
"You fought a ts-sunami and won. That's the coolest shit I've ever seen." This was a different voice, deep and forceful, from a young man Sam hadn't realized was in the corner by the door. He had dark skin that appeared to suck light from the air, out of focus; he smiled, eyeing Tandy and Sam in amusement. He reminded Sam of Lucas for a moment, but then, when the light faded from both the girls, he approached, and Sam saw a face lit with a genuine kindness.
"That's Cloak," Tandy said smiling.
"Tyrone," the boy corrected, and his face came into focus without the odd bending of light. "She's-s Dagger."
Tandy stepped back towards the door, pausing her music. "Would you like to move to your room now? Or you wanna get some food with us?"
Without Tandy's soothing touch, Samantha felt her throat squeezing, parched. "Water," she croaked out, "would be good."
At a table in the large atrium outside the small, residence kitchen, Tandy regaled Sam with a slew of stories the rigorous training from Parker, Rogers, and Maximoff. They were nervous about training with Romanoff now that Nat had returned from China. Sam, for her part, noticed that the tables were no longer as shiny white as when she was very young, when the plastic was new, and there were some chips in the paint around the tall windows. The light seemed harsher, piercing. She sipped, gulped, then chugged four glasses of water before uttering a word.
Tandy could control emotions with direct physical contact, which is what she did to Sam in the infirmary, and was working on throwing, aiming, what she described as Light Daggers. Sam could practically hear Uncle Peter's exclamations of awe; he still called things 'lit' from time to time, so he was likely having a field day commenting on his young protege's power. 'Cloak' referenced Tyrone's ability to teleport inside a cloud of darkness, absorbing light and energy from around him. This was why he appeared darker and out of focus in a well-lit room; he could legitimately hide in the smallest shadow. Tandy described him as 'the ultimate stealth operative.' Tyrone said nothing of this himself and watched Sam for a long while before turning to listen to Tandy, a girl alive with excitement. When they started discussing 'the wave' and what that meant Sam could do, however, his interest became apparent with his sudden focus on Sam's response.
"I don't remember," Sam shrugged, aware of Tyrone deflating in disappointment. "I'm not kidding. The last thing I remember is falling over in the woods. Pretty sure that was…March first?" She didn't say why she was in the woods, or what she did to Bucky's arm on February 28th to sear the date in her mind. She thought she could see a sunset, or a sunrise, when she closed her eyes to think about it, but beyond a flash of sky behind leaves was a horrible ringing in her ears. Sam wanted Missy, who would have wiped her drives by now and scattered. She had to find her.
"Well, today is the sixteenth," Tandy bubbled.
"Jeez, was I in a coma? Did my body try to reject Extremis?" There was a general clearing of throats in response, as if Sam's dry mouth had spread.
"Of April." Tyrone assessed Sam again. It made her feel as if she were expected to break apart in front of him. Sam defied Tyrone's expectations by remaining calm on the outside. She blinked but didn't speak right away.
After her pause, Sam took a deep breath and sighed. "Well, I'm in wild need of a coffee then." And a couple of shots of whisky couldn't hurt…
Tandy laughed, jumping up to get Sam whatever she wanted.
These new friends were like nothing Samantha had ever known. They were close to her age, closer than any of the Bartons; they were being trained as Avengers, so they didn't need Sam's name to gain anything; and they never judged her for what she didn't know. Because this whole 'world of the professional Avengers' was new to all three, everything was a bonding experience. Sam didn't recognize most of the music they played or movies and shows they loved, but she was open to whatever they wanted to do. She knew zero celebrities, except for her obvious uncles and aunts. After that first day, they never mentioned Tony Stark unless Sam did first, which was rare. Sam usually went very quiet when she was about to recount a story involving her dad, a mixed look rolling over her features then vanishing. She wanted to talk about him, but when she tried, Sam suddenly became a twelve-year-old girl again, the great Iron Man awkwardly standing over her, uninterested in anything she said. Sam wanted to feel good when she spoke of her father which meant she didn't speak of him.
Luckily, Tandy and Tyrone favored making new memories, too, so her jealous, aging beauty queen mother, and his best friend shot by a Boston cop were also not discussed, nor how they became…special. Sam only found out those tidbits of their pasts while she searched for traces of Missy online. She searched as secretly and thoroughly as she could but had found nothing after weeks. It was a long process to hide what she was doing amongst genuine searches related to her training.
Sam was tentatively mapping server locations where Missy may have pinged when her friend blurted, "can I cut your hair?" Tandy idly messed with Sam's unkept regrowth. She hadn't touched it since waking on the floor in Massachussetts after first injecting herself. "You've got a ducktail going back here, and it's not exactly flattering," the blond coaxed.
"Whatever you want, Dee," Sam mumbled, lulled by the gentle touch in her hair. She hadn't had a haircut in over a year, back when Annie insisted on a salon day for her bridesmaids. The incessant, high-pitched laughter, the gossip, and the roar of a dozen dryers had taken all of the pleasure out of someone massaging her scalp.
"Hear that, Ty? Sam trusts me with her hair."
"You're s-s-still not touching mu-mine." Tyrone flipped through some news articles while eating cereal, his favorite afternoon snack. They also didn't discuss his stutter.
Tandy's frown was audible, even from the behind Sam's head, and Sam smirked. She enjoyed their banter, all day, everyday.
"Sam, you wanna wet your hair for me? I'll get scissors," Tandy said to perk herself back up. "Come on." Her gaze shot back playfully to Tyrone. "Don't choke on your Fruit Loops while we're gone. No one will save you."
Tyrone brandished his middle finger on his spoon hand. He didn't look up.
The girls headed off to Sam's room, since Tandy's was farther down the hall.
"Not that you have to," Tandy started as they bounced along, "but you might want to take a full shower. You're a bit ripe after today's training."
Sam laughed anyway. Only Tandy could critique her while making Sam happier. "Yeah, you don't have to be a jerk about it."
"But you're a punk who needs my help," Tandy saluted Sam and excitedly trotted down the hall.
The door took her handprint, a newer feature. The tiny twin bed inside cradled the same watercolor blotched comforter Sam slept under since she was four. She took it to the Barton's originally, but by eight years old, she abandoned it here at Christmas. Thirteen, the year after Sam chose Mistress as a present, that was the year Nat stopped decorating her room with lights. True to form, no one had touched it but her since. The comforter was worn thin, the corners threadbare, but it felt familiar when nothing else, not even her own body, did.
Sam kept the habit of owning little clothing from her time in Wakanda, though the clothes were not as baggy on her now she ate whole foods. She'd never exercised so much in her life. Since no fighter in the building trusted her to attempt using her new abilities, Bruce proposed Samantha's more 'human' abilities be developed and tested. She spent her mornings running while Big Sam watched and timed her increasing speed and endurance. It didn't matter that she could do it; she hated running all the same. Afternoons were hand-to-hand combat with Natasha, a particularly humbling experience since Sam could not think of anyone she was more afraid to hit. Nat may have stopped visiting her in the hospital three years ago, but that anger did not translate to stupidity. They don't name you Black Widow for nothing.
Sam flopped a change of clothes onto the bed and popped into the shower, leaving the bedroom door open for Tandy to come back in. She hap hazardously scrubbed and rinsed, never much caring about the relaxing effects of washing. Sam had spent so many hours 'relaxing' in a regeneration cradle full of nutrient gel, she could do with never relaxing again. She was quick to throw on a towel and swing open the bathroom door simply to move on to fun with Tandy, but she was no longer alone. It wasn't Tandy who'd come in though.
"I knocked, but the door…" Bucky Barnes stood looking around her room, and while she'd seen him since waking up, he had never been inside her personal living space.
Sam stumbled over the small lip at the bathroom threshold, knocking her shoulder on the doorframe. A corner of her towel fell, and in her attempt to grab the falling fabric, she clenched the wrong end, lifting the bottom of her towel up high enough for half of her backside and chest to hang out.
"Holy shit," she exclaimed, shutting her eyes as hard as she could pinch them, awkwardly hunching to push as much fabric over her as possible. She thought she heard him say "you're okay," but the damage was already done. Sam's glow of shame spread to her left arm, the only appendage not reinforced with vibranium, igniting the terry cloth towel she held tight. She tried not to pay attention, to hum something soothing and back into the bathroom with some semblance of dignity but to no avail. Her unexpected guest ripped the smoking fabric from her body and started stamping it out on her bedroom floor.
Bucky pressed something silky against her arm. Sam clamped her arms across herself and cracked a single eye open, hoping she wouldn't light the whole room on fire.
"Brought you something. Figured you'd need it." Bucky's eyes were glued to the floor. He held out a slinky looking jumper of navy blue material. It touched her skin but still felt cool.
Sam snatched it, slamming the door between them.
"Banner found this fabric in the Baxter building after the Four…" he yelled through the wall before clearing his throat. "Human Torch needed clothing that wouldn't burn up, and Bruce figured so do you."
She took the time she spent squeezing into the legs of the leotard to calm down. "Does this mean I get to train for real? Seriously?" Excitement replaced embarrassment until she had a thought. "Wait—you knew I'd burn my—"
"Yes, but I didn't see anything." When Sam threw open the door again, he rushed to the hallway door, eyes still turned down.
"What?" The elephant sitting on Sam's chest shifted pressure to her stomach. She felt a little sick.
Bucky didn't turn around but must have felt guilty enough to offer his best attempt at an explanation. "Bruce knows the temperature you can reach when you—he calls it Deregulate, but I—you were covered in mud. I saw nothing in Wakanda. Promise."
In her terror, Sam sensed more was required to embarrass the Winter Soldier. "But…"
"But…I had to carry you back," he softly admitted. Then Bucky changed the subject abruptly, adding, "your training starts with me tomorrow, and we're going out. We're starting slow."
Sam's cheeks caught fire, or might as well have. She was grateful Bucky still faced away. The tall, dark haired behemoth at her bedroom door just admitted to carrying her around naked while she was unconscious, then he chose the worst possible wording for his follow-up statement. She couldn't process all the implications at that moment.
"Meet at the garage at six," Bucky said, opening the door. "I know you're not a morning person, but we have a ways to drive." With one last look directly at Sam, he added with a smirk, "no bikes. Promise."
Sam vaguely recognized the Boy Scout's honor sign in the hand he raised but was too shocked to care. Tandy stood outside, eyes indiscreetly wide.
The blond giggled before she shut the door. "Oh, there's a story there," she squeaked. The blond's eyes landed on the new outfit, adding, "and this is…hideous." Tandy's immense disappointment released in a dramatic sigh. "At least Ty has some fashion sense. He would never give you this to wear. Why the hell would you need something so unflattering?" Tandy tossed her own hair back in distain before brandished her comb and scissors, smiling.
Sam stood slack-jawed, unable to answer. Her mind raced to recall any poorly worded comments she might have let slip in subsequent conversations she and Captain Barnes had since their return stateside, but nothing stood out. He was perfectly friendly, he never looked at her strangely, and so it seemed to matter very little to Bucky personally that he had…done that. Sam concluded he was mostly sparing her the embarrassment of flaring off her clothing again, this time in front of people who might not be as indifferent. That's…nice, I suppose. He's a nice guy…to everyone.
"Sam, you ok? You look pretty pale." Tandy handed her the fresh clothes she'd set on her bed, subtly nudging her to get out of the fashion faux-pas of the tight onesie.
Certainly not alright. "Yup, just tired from the run." She strategically layered the regular clothes over the flame-retardant fabric. She no longer questioned why they had babied her interactions so far; Sam was a hazard until she could properly control herself.
"Sit down," Tandy demanded happily, "we'll get coffee and show you off after."
Not nearly as much as I just showed off. Sam lamented no longer having Missy as her personal security system. Missy would never have let this happen.
Didn't do that just to be gratuitous, but it was hilarious anyway. Hope you enjoyed! As always, feedback welcome. Next time, we catch up with good ol' Dad...