CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX—April 2039
Without coffee, Sam did not recall why her alarm clock went off so damn early. She could not remember the previous day's embarrassment at all until squeezing a leg into Johnny Storm's jumpsuit. Why the hell would a man wear something this tight? Sam hoped training today involved punching something she was less afraid of than Natasha because she was poised to wail out frustration on something flammable. Tandy spoke of her required 'discharges' of Lightforce if she hadn't used power for a long period of time; Sam wondered if this was the same thing. Maybe her body was just antsy with pent up energy? Maybe it had nothing to do with Bucky himself? She hoped.
Out on the lawn, travel cup in hand but not enough caffeine in her veins, scarfing the last bite of a croissant sandwich down, Sam walked sloppily towards a car in the drive. A small kit of pigeons pecked between the gravel at the corner of the lawn. Sam kept shuffling forward expecting the birds to scatter as she neared, but in her morning haze, it slowly dawned on her that they didn't move. Her foot stopped less than an inch away from one's foot. She stared curiously.
The birds took flight simultaneously aimed at her body. Startled, Sam raised her hands to her face, tossing her mug aside, and falling back onto the drive. The squeaking noise that erupted in her shock was followed by a snickering laugh across the lawn. Big Sam stood in his sweats, arms crossed over his heart, cackling.
"Your face," Wilson breathed through joyous belly laughs, "priceless."
Sam wasn't hurt, save her pride and liquid lucidity. Option #1 for punching: Big Sam. She grabbed her half-spilled tumbler off the ground, frowning, but thankful that she had not worn her white sweatshirt as she dusted off. Bucky stood by the car, holding out a peace offering of more coffee and failing to hide his own smile. Sam got into the car, thinking Option #2 within arms length.
Trailed by various soaring friends, Big Sam waved Sam and Bucky on as he completed his run before training the teens. His pace was slow but steady, his salt and pepper hair glittered in the dawn light. Samantha tilted her forehead to rest against the window of the outlandish, dark green, custom Ferrari Bucky had chosen from Tony's garage. Bucky must have done something right to convince Tony to give him access to his 'babies.'
Sam drank some of the new tumbler then wiggled it into the holder. "How long is the drive?"
"Over an hour, when I go the speed limit." Bucky smirked, energized by their little prank. When Sam didn't reply, he shifted his eyes from the road to her, his nub of a ponytail gently scratching against the leather head rest. "It looks nice," Bucky tried, making a waving gesture over a shoulder with his free hand.
Trying to put a shine on early hours with a compliment of her hair cut was not going to work.
"I hate you," Sam grumbled before shoving her hands into her kangaroo pocket and nodding back off against the pane of passing trees.
Bucky smiled again.
Sharon adjusted Sam's shoulders and feet. "Try it like you're shooting."
Sam hit zero the stationary targets set 50 feet out, facing away from the Rogers' classic farmhouse home outside of…where? Sam had no knack for domestic geography. She wanted desperately to be fantastic at this. Instead, her showing so far was truly pathetic. All that came forward from her palm was a wide spit of flame that launched Sam backwards into the grass.
Her coach returned to her side. "Ok, describe to me what you're doing."
They wanted her to fire a blast of energy that maintained inertia across the rich green field from her left arm, of course, which was not her dominant. She was having to mentally adjust the few aiming lessons of her life to the other side, and she felt overwhelmed and stupid for not picking this up immediately. She was good at a plethora of things, all sorts of subjects, but not this. Sam's analytic mind reeled, rushing through physics calculations and velocities and impacts and force and speed. Equations were much easier on paper. Or when Missy helped. This was Sam, alone, with an audience of professionals. It should have been her dream, what she'd worked for this whole time. It made her sweaty instead.
"I'm…aiming like drawing the bow back."
Sharon laughed at herself. "Right, shooting arrows, with Clint." She rounded on her heels, remarkably spry for a woman in her fifties. "Bucky, give me your weapon."
The resistance to the tug of the assault rifle from his chest let Agent 13 know just how possessive the soldier was of his comforts. Nobody ever fired it except Bucky unless some bizarre happenstance prevented him maintaining and cleaning it himself. Steve couldn't stop the curl of his lips.
"Just for a moment," Sharon comforted, "I promise, I just need to demonstrate kickback. This is the most equivalent size. Pretty please?"
Bucky relinquished.
Sharon gingerly cradled Bucky's metal baby in her arms, stifling a laugh, until she was back by Sam's side. She positioned the girl's hands, shoulder, and the angle of her hips. "I'm expecting this to knock you over, so prove me wrong, yeah?" Sharon lowered her voice to barely a whisper, adding, "I know you can impress them." She winked before shifting to stand behind Sam. "Tiny burst towards the targets, just so you can feel the force and correct. Just one, or Bucky will have a heart attack."
Sam's breath caught as she lifted the heavy weapon, afraid of falling on her ass, so she dug her heels in for balance and concentrated. She could feel something summoned inside by her focus, a tendril of steel reinforcing her arm, strengthening her shoulder socket. She practiced a one-count in her mind in an attempt to automate the timing in case the kickback overwhelmed her. Her finger gave a tentative squeeze.
The tat-tat-tat of gunfire startled her even when she expected it. Her feet did not falter until after the firing stopped, but then she stumbled back, unable to shift her balance forward against the punch of the butt into her pectoral.
"Goddamnit," she mumbled.
"Not bad," Sharon whispered with a pat on Sam's shoulders, calling "You can have it back now, Bucky." He hovered a foot away and grabbed the gun back faster than Sam could release her hands. Sam had the distinct feeling she had managed to defile something precious to him, but he was gone before she could apologize or thank him for allowing it. Sharon wasted no time. "That's the kind of thing happening inside your body, so I want you to prepare, to push back so that your balance aids your aim. Alright?"
Sam's face betrayed her terror. Sharon put her arm around Sam, putting her body in the way of the men. "Sam, think of it as you are the bow string, you are what pushes the bullet forward. Sorry, mixed metaphors, but you are absolutely smart and strong enough to produce the different velocity and distance shots I'm asking for…plus I'd rather you learn to take down targets when they are far away rather than up close. This will technically make you good at both, and you'll get stronger by producing and aiming different forces."
Sam sagged a corner of her mouth in response but nodded. Her heart raced as Sharon walked away, leaving the impression of a demolition expert unspooling a cord to distance herself from dynamite. Missy's voice quoted mathematical possibilities in her head. It made Sam focus on the problem at hand, in her hand. So my body is a weapon now. Release the safety, feel the balance, and control to discharge…that's shit soldiers say, right? Her eyes focused on the red center of rings but didn't fire. Her eyes, she noticed, shifted focus as if a solid tunnel formed between her and the spot; the closer her field of vision got to the tiniest of spots, the hotter she felt.
Sam raised her arm. Every cell produced a tiny wave of energy, little ripples bouncing around, magnified when they hit the echo pad of her vibranium skin. She willed the little echos to converge to her left palm, and they did exactly as they were told. Behind her ears came a high ringing like the charge before Iron Man's blast. Something methodical took over. Her periphery shut down. The game was an experiment; Sam needed the results. It was that simple. She made mental notes…that she couldn't share with Missy. The ringing peaked. She fired off like a snapped rubber band, a bright whip of fire racing from her outstretched palm.
Sam did not puncture the target—she blew the whole thing sky high.
"What the hell," Bucky shrieked.
Steve beamed with pride, but his eyebrows raised high in surprise anyway.
Sharon clapped after a split-second of shock. "Great, and now we're gonna reign it back in a bit."
Sam's first ever shit-eating grin spread ear to ear across her face.
Sam smiled all through lunch; she didn't even mind the other three chatting as if she wasn't there. She had no notion of what they were saying anyway. At some point, after Sam inhaled her pot roast and salad, Sharon turned to discuss her burgeoning plan to fully train Sam.
Sharon Rogers was engaging and kind, but Agent 13, the professional, dived back in with precision and intensity, convinced that she had relevant footage to help Sam train.
"No, no," Sharon insisted, "the DVDs are in the garage. I know they are."
Steve shook his head. "The player doesn't even work anymore."
Unhappy to see her trainer deflate, Sam offered to help. She fixed the Barton's stuff all the time back when she lived there.
Sharon rushed to gather everything, dropping the hardware off at the table with Sam and her husband before disappearing again to search the garage. Bucky excused himself to set up the afternoon's exercises.
While Sam worked, Steve stared out the window watching Bucky work then shifting to watch her. Sam assumed he didn't want to talk until he blurted, "I chose to be changed, too, back in '43."
Sam barely raised her chin, intent on her task, and clueless as to what he meant.
Steve started swirling his tea around in the cobalt blue tumbler. "I'll give you the same advise I was given. Remember who you are. That doesn't change simply because you can do more."
Sam had no idea what prompted his concern, but it felt out of place with their current circumstance. "You mean, stay the girl born into technology so I can repair some old fart's video system?" Sam smiled in jest.
Steve couldn't help but smile back. "You've been hanging around Cloak and Dagger too much." He knew Sam would never have spoken to him like that a year ago because it was familiar and playful, friendly for once. "You like it, admit it," he added, grabbing away one of the little tools Sam had set down only to watch her fling her hand out in offense.
"Give," she demanded.
He handed the screwdriver back. "I meant that sometimes when people have the ability to do something, they tend to think they must, that they have to use power. You don't have to, you understand?"
Sam tinkered for another moment. Steve sipped his tea, thinking that the task before her did not require such an intensely dark expression.
"Sir, I wasn't anybody before this," Sam started slowly, "not to you or anyone else. I was given everything, and I was still nothing. So pardon me for enjoying being noticed, whether it's because I can blow stuff up or because I can fix things."
Bucky and Sharon returned before Steve could protest. Sam tightened the casing she'd replaced and triumphantly trotted to the living room.
"Perfect." Sharon followed Sam. "Let's set up while Bucky tries to clean my dishes without breaking anything."
"Sharon," Steve warned, hanging his head.
"Or twenty bucks…for interest added."
"You said 15.99," Bucky quoted, gathering plates, "and I would rather be blown up."
Steve snorted, waving his hand forward. "Sam. Sick 'em."
"I'm not a dog. You're the golden boy. Let's make sure this plays," she finished, turning into the den, "I promise I won't set your house on fire."
"I know you won't, sweetheart." Sharon, jumping forward to her plan, handed over the disc. "But after this, I want us to get back finding that sweet spot you found with that first target. Everything was in balance, you could see it in your glow."
Sam crouched down to plug in the cables behind the viz-screen base. "What'd you mean?"
"Well, you know, the Extremis and vibranium, they work against each other or one dominates and you are orange and violet or your skins all a patchwork, but when it all works—" she linked her fingers "—together, you're basically green. That's a balance. We need to work on that."
Sam's training in the afternoon was less terrifying when she tested the nuances of her energy strikes. She even shot the Cap Shield out of the sky…once.
Bucky couldn't explain why Steve got choked up when Sam celebrated by bouncing up and down. Kid stuff, he thought, but while the dark road in front of him zipped under the car, he understood that his friend had no children to teach. Samantha Stark was the only child Steve Rogers had been around from her birth to adulthood, and his friend witnessed her learn something new. Bucky never considered that a bond on its own.
It was a confusing day for Bucky, including the cryptic conversation Steve had with him over the dishes. The talk ended with "Buck, if you don't even bother to look for the right partner, the dance ends with you alone." The sentiment was not new, but it came out of nowhere. Bucky remained distracted the whole afternoon while watching ancient footage of himself, Rogers, and the Howling Commandos, clips that Sharon had compiled long ago and refused to embarrass Steve with until she thought it might inspire Sam.
After seeing others go through growing pains, progress never feels as slow and arduous. It worked for Sam, but Bucky hardly paid attention.
"I see why they live like that," Sam chirped, breaking the silence of the ride back to HQ, "it's peaceful. No people around." She'd continued her great mood all day.
"Yeah, nice to be secluded," Bucky replied softly. Why was what Steve said bothering him that much?
When Sam made no further comment, his eyes focused back on the road, and the silence descended again. Bucky's mind wandered to the distinction between children and adults for a time. He certainly felt his own innocence die with his father, having already grown up without a mother, but he remembered moments at Lehigh when recruits would befriend him. He knew, even at thirteen, the difference between being treated with respect or as a naive brat. He'd known then, and he was nowhere near as smart as Sam at that age. Why did he associate her joy negatively with youth? Why did he think Sam acted childish and unprofessional for celebrating a successful day? Hell, most of my training consisted of being brutalized until I complied. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
A thought popped into his head out of nowhere. "Where did you find the whisky?"
He knocked Sam out of deep contemplation aimed at the window. She raised her brows, tired.
"My gift, thank you by the way, how did you find it?"
"Oh," she blinked, "my search of your name for information on your arm." She shoved her hands back into her sweatshirt, adding,"happy belated birthday, by the way." She was frozen in cryo on the day last month.
Bucky snorted. "I don't count those anymore."
Perhaps Sam was too tired to filter her thoughts. "If I were that old, neither would I."
He tried to suppress a hearty laugh, biting his lower lip, darting his gaze off to the side. His attention turned back to the road quickly, but his smile did not fade right away.
Sam giggled, a new, charming sound. "Did you know that there are fan clubs dedicated to you? It's actually a little freaky the number of photos they have of you, but there are so many fans of Captain America… They make up all these stories of celebrities you date, or have one night stands with. It's weird."
Bucky scowled, the first one Sam ever saw on him. She had to know this made him uncomfortable, but she kept going.
"I'm just saying you've got a big pool of options. Lots of takers. No one should be alo—"
"Would you and Steve mind your own damn business?" Bucky exploded. His blood boiled over in an instant.
Sam's arms snapped to her sides, eyes as big as half dollars.
"It gets old really fast when you all just blurt out what you think I need—"
"Hey," Sam yelled back, "Steve knows you better than any person alive."
"Then leave me to my life." His temper wavered. Apparently, she was not angry that he'd snapped at her, but Bucky saying something against his friend, a man not around to defend himself, that crossed a line. Odd. An uncommon response from a teen.
"I've—" Sam got quiet while he stewed in irritation. "You're right. I have no right, but…Tony, without Mom…he's a shell, and I don't want you to be a shell."
Bucky pursed his lips. That insightful little twerp, he grumbled, unwilling to relinquish his anger yet, she has a point. Is this how Steve feels too? He made no reply aloud. He already knew the answer because Bucky heard the same speech year after year.
"Excuse me for not wanting that to happen to anyone else." Sam let out a huffing sigh and shifted. "How much farther is it?"
"Why do you always ask me about this stuff?" Bucky couldn't let it go just yet.
"I only asked if you knew about fan clubs, and then you screamed at me. Didn't hear you screaming at Steve earlier…What did he say?"
"I wasn't—sorry, I'm sorry." The apology hardly explained, but this topic needed to die a quick death in his book. On top of all the rest, he kicked himself for ruining Sam's good mood.
She curled into a ball in the seat. "Whatever. Be an asshole. Just get us home."
Bucky found it interesting that Sam finally referred to headquarters as 'home.' She looked comically adorable when she pouted, but he thought it inappropriate to smile before being forgiven.
A/N: Catch any juicy bits? Reviews welcome!