Yikes. Sorry for the wait! I don't expect I'll be taking this long to post more chapters...but just in case, thank you so much for all reader support and reviews. Still working hard, I promise.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE—July 2039
Shirtless and a little cold, Bucky sat in a lab with someone poking and prodding at his arm…again. Tony and Samantha stood arguing over him, radiating the same stubborn righteousness.
Tony mumbled critiques of Bucky's impeccably detailed arm, each proving moot upon inspection or a single-phrase reason from its designer. Bucky watched Sam's shoulders raise, her back shrinking with each backhanded compliment. She was defensive, but for his part, Bucky thought she should be proud. He had no complaints, save for the one time Tony continued to harp on.
"But the neural overload of being hit by Thor's lightning…?" Tony jabbed again.
"Corrected by a tissue-specific Extremis, locally injected as you witnessed," Sam answered.
Tony hovered over the shoulder of the shirtless super-soldier, wearing magnifiers. "You got lucky," he scoffed finally.
"No, I didn't." Sam backed towards the far chairs, tired and avoiding eye-contact. "It was engineered to die after one proliferation. Captain Barnes was never in danger of infection."
"So you admit it's an infection?" Her father straightened, bouncing a reflex tool off of Bucky's elbow to measure the flinch. There was no point to it, but Tony enjoyed making Bucky furrow his brow in annoyance. "Do you know how many things could have gone wrong with an adaptive virus like that?"
Sam's nostril's flared. "It worked on Wilson, didn't it?"
The room filled with lead. Tony dropped the tool, eyes wide. "Excuse me," he breathed.
A light clicked on so ferociously in his mind it made Bucky's eye twitched. Her concern on our flight to Wakanda, testing Wilson with cards during training…A surge of irritation for not connecting it sooner swept through him.
Sam broke the heavy silence. "I knew the neural-isolated virus would work on Big Sam because I'd already used a dermal version on myself. He wasn't waking up. Steve told me you all had as good as given up."
So Steve had to have pieced together what she'd done… This meant she had already used Extremis on herself before that day in the woods. Sam knew exactly what she carried around with her. She had pointed for him to use it. She was exactly as brilliant as Tony and just as self-destructive. He watched her closer in the quiet.
"And Buc—Barnes's enhanced nerve cells just hadn't adjusted to the magnification effects of vibranium—" stares followed every move of her anxious hands "—so I…aided their rapid adaptation."
Bucky tried to help. "And now I'm fine, so we are all good."
"You experimented on a member of this team?" Tony's face went purple, several veins dangerously pulsing with every word. "Without his permission? In this building?"
Bucky distinctly remembered Tony saying they had run out of viable therapies.
Sam rang her hands. "You lied to me," she spat, "at the wedding you told me he would be fine. Of course I tried everything—I tried more than you did."
"So you graduated to organ and limb replacement—"
"—treatment—"
"—after one success? That's ridiculous. That's reckless." Tony almost charged at Samantha. She leaned towards him, unafraid. Bucky couldn't get between them this time.
"How was I supposed to know Buck would get hit by 30,000 amps in a newly connected neuron path?" Sam threw up her arms in Tony's face. "Even if he had his metal arm, you can't just dial people up to eleven."
Tony buckled. "That—" he shouted, waving a finger in his daughter's face "—that movie is a classic." He took a long moment to swallow a boulder of pride.
Sam teetered, eyes darting around from place to place. She had no more reference ammunition.
Bucky sat still as stone, waiting for the accusations of personal endangerment and downright stupidity certain to come, but Tony shifted. His muscles slacked. The crinkling around his eyes smoothed, and Stark turned to Bucky, dismissing him with a pat on the back.
"You're done. You'll survive." Tony shoved his sleeves up his arms. "You can go, too, Sass."
Her neck tensed, lip twitching again, jaw tight as a wire about to snap, but Sam made it out the doors before Tony could even turn around. Standing, Bucky grabbed his shirt, surprised she let Tony have the last word.
Before Bucky pulled the fabric over his head, however, Tony made his way over to whisper, "other than her ass on that chair behind that screen, nobody discusses Avengers' business with her. Got it?" Tony pointed to Banner, who stood frozen with a look of utter bewilderment. "Good talk."
Life at Headquarters attempted normalsy after weeks of changes following Tony's return. Sam Wilson retired to permanently train new recruits. Steve Rogers returned to the quiet life in the hills, regularly asking Tony if he wished to join him and Sharon for a day. Jabbing about needing to be the center of attention, Tony declined. Not enough cameras. No reason to wear a suit, iron or three-piece. The dynamics were shifting and they needed to, fast.
Standing inches from a glass wall overlooking busy workers in a massive campus designed to make him look good, Stark hoped his outer appearance betrayed nothing of the deep fatigue weighing his insides. He recovered from space-sickness months ago; something more sinister plagued him now.
"I don't like people handing me things," Tony grunted, spurning the offering from Maria Hill.
The agent rolled her eyes. "You have taken files from me before, Stark."
"Well—" he shrugged "—I'm an enigma. Humor me. What's the lay of the land?"
Maria dropped the files on the shining steel table with a thud, glancing across the room. Bruce Banner sat with Samantha at a far station, several projected screens in front of the doctor while Sam sat quietly 'being instructed.' She remained safe at what amounted to an incredibly expensive cubicle with the world's most over-qualified tutor. Tony convinced himself that Sam felt included doing busy work at the computer.
"Shield teams are on every continent dealing with outlying threats or suspected D-Lite transformations. We've got alerts out to all morgues to check all overdose victims for traces of the drug to see the scope of its distribution, but not everyone has the resources to test." Maria sighed. The Director of Operations withheld the current estimated death toll from her briefing. Bruce mentioned to Tony it had reached over one thousand since Cloak and Dagger survived the drug. "Three aquatic inhumans have been assigned to Atlantis to help Namor. Still no sign of Victor Von Doom, but we've been unable to search Latveria—"
"Why not?" Tony cocked an eyebrow.
"Diplomatically, it's a non-starter seeing as we are basically accusing the country of being complicit in harboring an enemy of state, our state that is."
Which they are, he thought. He missed the old days of smash-and-grab, asking for forgiveness after he got what he wanted. Iron Man had no nation as Earth's savior; he landed wherever, whenever…before the Accords.
"Their rep's language is vague, but it sounds as if our targets are some sort of national treasure. The country's GDP and living standard have increased remarkably over the last decade. Our enemies are Latveria's heroes. The people seem to revere Doom."
"Heroes plural?"
"Again, it's vague, but they emphasize that no citizens will be considered for extradition whether we have proof of crimes or not. The UN Inhuman Oversight Committee has no jurisdiction. Latveria never signed the Accords and holds no official participation."
"Where are they getting all this cash, all that industry?" Bruce face sank, his eyes darkened with concern.
Director Hill shrugged, adding only "unknown."
Sam chirped to attention across the room. "Did we consider the doctor was trying to access vibranium for the benefit of his people?"
Tony shot her down. "We don't need to give this guy the benefit of the doubt—"
"So motivation isn't important?"
"We don't rationalize crazy."
"Sorry, Tony," Bruce interrupted, "but we do if it helps figure out motive. We can use it to figure out where he went."
"So, what's a substance like vibranium most helpful in use for?" Sam continued. "Weapons? Infrastructure? Medicine? Do we know how much he wanted? Is there an alternative material he may go after?"
"He wasn't prepared to physically carry much alone over a sea," Tony thought aloud.
"Adamantium," Bruce added, "but it's a poor substitute in certain applications."
"Has any source of that been attacked?"
Maria flipped open one file. "Nothing. Wanda is with the X-Men, has been for a while, and there's been no action against their facility, even with teams away on missions consistently."
Sam sat back in her chair, twiddling her finger clipped inside a monitor attached to an electrified wire. Today's experiment. "So what did Doctor Doom get that replaced his need for vibranium? Could he have gotten it from somewhere else?"
Tony fitfully paced along the windows. "You are not an agent. Eyes on your screen, Killian-two."
Sam's lips tightened in frustration. Her physical training had come to an abrupt halt after Tony woke from his first decent night's sleep on Earth. She was relegated to sit silently beside Bruce and answer only when asked a question. In her newly free time, Tony allowed Hill to use Sam to check positioning orders. It may have been equivalent to assigning a supercomputer basic algebra, but her mother had been good at it. Why shouldn't Sam? Sam stayed during a brief only because he was currently testing electromagnetic resonance to disrupt her energy production.
"She has a point," Maria jumped in. "We originally thought he was trying to update his own shielding with vibranium but if he wanted to do something else…"
"And why did he approach so obviously? Like he wanted to fight you guys," Sam added.
"Don't you have a caffeine addiction to feed?" Tony snapped.
Sam stood and fired a small ball of plasma from her left hand into the steel waste bin inches away from Tony's leg. It smoked as he turned away, defeated. Current running across her skin caused no disruption. Test failed. Next theory.
"Yeah, I can do that too," Tony mumbled.
Smug atop her high horse, Sam shifted on her feet. "Without a suit?"
Maria rolled her eyes before they landed on Bruce. "I don't need to be here for this. Call me if you think of anything else," she grumbled while walking out.
"You know, I pioneered the functional use of clean energy." Tony's chest puffed farther out.
Unamused, Sam's eyes went wide and her mouth gaped. "No shit? That's so cool. What'd you say your name was again?"
He clucked his tongue. "Makes me feel a tad disrespected when you speak to me like that."
"Said everyone who's ever spoken to you."
A snort sounded beside her. "Damn it, now there's two of you," Bruce murmured, stifling a cough before dismissing himself for a break.
"And that's lunch," Sam said, skirting the table towards the door. "Your bull makes me hungry."
"Burns calories. Keeps me trim." Tony slapped his stomach and followed her out. "A burger does sound good."
She shrugged. "Ty's got me hooked on cereal now. I mean, I crave it—"
"Also your Hogwarts letter came today," Tony added, pulling the opened card from his pocket. "Trash can comes out of your allowance."
Tony walked beside Sam to the kitchen, reciting the fancy cursive words on the oversized page by memory.
Samantha Stark
7am October 5th, 177A Bleeker Street.
Sorcerer Supreme, Dr. Steven Strange
"Notice how he took twice as much space for his own name. Classic Strange. If you learn any party tricks, be sure to teach me."
Sam stood firm in a familiar hallway, torn between working her station by Bruce or being alone in her room. Both options made Sam want to cry in boredom.
The gorgeous, strawberry-blond looked back at her from the frame on the wall. Virginia Pott's dazzling smile, the delicate height of rosy cheeks, and beautiful blue eyes taunted Sam. Her mother looked effortless, radiant, calm. Hung among all sixty-eight portraits, Pepper still stood out in a crowd.
Sam could see that maybe their eye shape was similar, perhaps the fullness of their lips, possibly their jawline. She could remember her mother's bubbly nature, a story time or two, the gentle sweep of hair across her face when Pepper leaned to kiss her goodnight. It tickled. It tickled her still, the thought of that kind of proximity. Sam sometimes imagined it was Pepper when the room was dark and Laura Barton called 'sleep tight' to her.
Pep put out fires for Tony. She said no to him. She put up with years of one-night stands. He paid closer attention to those women than her, even if momentarily…
Sam imagined what advise Pepper would give her now. Consistency, sweetheart, perhaps, and then he'll see you. But Pepper herself was all Tony ever truly wanted. Nothing Sam could ever do would matter as much.
Her fingers went limp in her daydream, releasing Strange's invitation to flutter to the grey floor. As she picked the paper back up, Sam had the urge to rip it apart. This wasn't what she wanted; this wasn't worth any of the hell she'd gone through. Sam couldn't sit behind a screen behind Dr. Banner behind the enormous umbrella corporation behind her father. That wasn't her place.
She was no fighter, and there was never anything mystical about her. Sam would disappoint Strange just as she disappointed Tony.
"Hey."
Sam startled, spinning around.
"Sorry," Bucky added, reaching out to help her balance, "I've got you. Almost didn't find you. You weren't in the lab."
Sam tried to focus after lost so deep in thought. "Nope."
Bucky smiled. "Okay, Sass, I had an idea. You game?"
Sneaking a glance back at Pepper's portrait, Sam haplessly nodded, shrugged, and shook her head all at once. She never knew what she should do at any given time these days. Missy would know, but Sam didn't.
The pure joy on her face distracted him from the scalding splatter of beef fat on his arm.
"Look! The grill marks are in the shape of my hand," Sam exclaimed.
"Be careful with that," Bucky cautioned to her outstretched hand. Cooking seemed a safe activity for Sam to participate in, one of which he assumed Tony would approve, and it proved equally entertaining to Bucky. Everyone eats, and as Sam pointed out, learning to make her father's favorite from scratch could only help her.
The novelty of Sam's skin reaching a high enough surface temperature to cook the meat wore off on Bucky much faster than Sam. Seeing her so excited held its luster though. As always when he'd found her, she hadn't eaten.
Sam slapped down her first charred patty with glowing pride. I could make a habit of this, Bucky thought, I might have to. Ever since Tony and Bruce panicked at Samantha's confession of injecting Wilson with Extremis, whatever version of it, Wilson was unceremoniously 'retired,' moved to D.C. to work with engineers of projects following his upgraded EXO-7. This left Bucky without a partner and benched to do his own worst nightmare—PR.
Public relations made Bucky long for the days of hiding in Romania, speaking to no one, and sitting alone in an apartment in the dark. That was preferable to the flashing cameras, every so often being shrieked at by an over-excited 'fan.' Uncomfortable didn't cover the feeling, a fact Samantha noticed.
"Saw you on TV," she offered, grabbing another patty. Her glance skittered away when Bucky looked up in question. "I'm sorry you have to do that. You look so miserable."
"I thought I pulled it off rather nicely." Without the infiltration expertise of Natasha, Bucky was far more transparent than he hoped.
Sam snorted. "Sure. Oscar-worthy even." She defiantly grabbed a potato chip with her free hand and popped it in her mouth, smirking just like her father when he coined a new nickname. From what Bucky witnessed, the Stark duo were evenly matched in everything except pop-culture references and anecdotes about team members.
Sam gnashed her teeth as if she'd been raised by monkeys. She flipped the burger like a pancake in her hand.
Her smugness reminded him how irritating Tony could be, and the surge of indignation caused Bucky to strike back, less playfully than intended. "You eat like a heathen."
Sam's smile fell. She rummaged for small chips, eating piece by piece, becoming a model of dainty and quiet chewing. She changed into the type of delicate bird Bucky recently met on dates. That was not his intention, his valid observation surpassed by a twinge of pain seeing her deflating spirit.
"It's a shame everyone now is so formal," he said through a frown, hoping to be more convincing than promotional outings.
Sam furrowed her brow in question but remained focused on eating politely.
"I mean, these dates Sharon sets up, coffee and drinks. We just sit there. What happened to dancing or a hike or exploring a city? It's stifling to not move around."
"Doesn't sound all that bad to sit still," Sam offered before fully swallowing another chip, shoulders relaxing. "Picnics are outside but you're sitting." Slapping down the cooked burger, she tightened again when she noticed her manners. "How many you up to now?"
"Six." In half as many months but also in twice as many years. "I'm a regular Casanova of the Coffee Shop."
Sam snorted. "Librarians not doing it for you?"
"Four were—are agents," Bucky said, mumbling, "but I'm here all the time when not on mission, so talk always circles back to work and clearance level and what she's allowed to know. Then I have nothing else to talk about because this building—the job—is, unfortunately, my whole life."
"There's the door." Sam pointed with her free hand. "You just said you wanted to get out there."
"Yeah," Bucky sighed, "Sharon said that."
"So nothing sparked? Did you even try?" Sam fluffed the heap of lettuce beneath the cooked burgers. "Buck, you aren't Quasimodo. This shouldn't be that difficult for you."
"She said that, too."
Sam raised her shoulders and hands, one still glistening with grease, waiting for an explanation.
Bucky mimicked her gesture. He had no reply, but the corner of his mouth twitched when he heard her call him 'Buck.' She'd done it before, but he couldn't pinpoint when it started. It was nice, friendly and familiar as when Steve said it, comforting.
Sam sighed a few more times while washing her hands and holding up the plate for Bucky to remove the other patties from the heat.
"Odd question," she said finally, "are you unhappy?"
"What? No. We both…were alone for so long, Steve just wants the same companionship for me that he's found."
The eyebrows raised again as Sam waited for more of an answer that never came. Then she set down the plate to say, "I may not have much experience with…people, but I never saw the appeal. I may have been unhappy with myself at times, but no person brought me out of that. If they had, that would be unfair to hang my happiness on them. Personally, I don't believe that's what love is for."
At 18 years old Sam instantly became the wisest person in the building.
"But," she added, "you also don't want to end up like my father because that is just sad." Sam looked Bucky dead in the eyes, saying "even Frankenstein's monster had a bride."
"Sam!" Tandy burst around the corner. "Found you. Oh gosh, smells great. You coming down for bowling? Ty's setting up." The blond huffed, out of breath from her excitement and race through the halls. Her gaze landed on Bucky. "You can come too if you bring the food."
"Jeez, Dee, tell him your priorities," Sam retorted but snapped up the plate all the same. She made no attempt to ask Bucky if he would join. "We're in. Grab whatever fixings you want from the fridge."
Bucky couldn't argue; after making a big deal about not having activities, bowling qualified as another safe and normal pastime. He followed with the chips.
He did not prepare himself for the contrast between the sage wisdom Samantha had laid forth in the kitchen and the crouching form centered in the lane, heaving a ball from between her legs. It was truly painful to watch and yet utterly hysterical.
He laughed until tears ran down his cheeks.
"Everyone's a critic," Sam grumbled, planting hands on her hips as she stood up. "You don't like my granny-roll?"
Bucky could barely get out the words through choked breaths. "Why…why can't… you just…throw it normally?"
Sam opened her mouth to make some indignant reply but was cut short by a third, neutral party.
"We found out the hard way—" Tyrone indicated a sloppily patched hole in the wall above the pins "—that Sam cannot roll gently into that good lane." Smiling, his air was tailor-made bombast aimed directly at his friend.
Sam rolled her eyes well enough. "Thank you, Winston." She returned to her seat beside Bucky while Tandy bowled her frame. "It's all or nothing with exerted force, it seems, but not the generated energy blasts. Those I can control pretty well now. It's fascinating, but apparently not interesting enough to research since Tony's return. I suspect it has something to do with extended direct contact with the vibranium in my skin since this is my dominant hand." Sam's rambling ended with a wiggle of the fingers on her right hand before she looked up.
Bucky zoned out somewhere in the middle, but he did manage to keep his expression focused enough that Sam was fooled. See, I'm ok at acting. I'm convincing.
Tandy dance-bowled across the lane, gracefully landing a seven-ten split. Tyrone gave a golf clap and picked up his ball of choice. They'd heard Sam's theories before. Neither having a scientific bone in their bodies, no one responded.
Sam pushed her empty plate away and tucked her hands into her hoodie pocket.
"Have you ever tried," Bucky delicately started, "talking like everyone else?"
Sam scoffed, adjusting her shoulders against the hard chair.
"What's wrong with intelligence?"
Bucky felt the hair on his arm bristle in discomfort. "That's not what I meant."
"Well, that's sure as shit what it sounded like. I'm not ladylike enough for you? Get in line. I'm not the one who wants 'movement dates' and a woman with a lizard pin. Be unique but not too unique. Jeez, with my loud eating, my granny-roll, even my scientifically curious thoughts—" Sam flatlined her hands in a sweeping motion "—then I'm…what? Indelicate? Uncouth? Unfriendly? So it's my fault my father can't stand me?"
Unable to stop himself, Bucky pressed his hands up to calm her, replying, "that was perhaps the most unladylike thing I've witnessed in fifty years. Please, I meant nothing else. I meant—" What the hell do I mean? "—communication is important to…listening can help friends relate to…common interests." He couldn't grasp his point. The smirk across his lips threatened to release his own indelicate snort as he imagined the slow, ridiculous move which he was sure to witness repeatedly.
Sam pursed her lips. "That was the most unintelligible thing I've ever heard…" she said under her breath, "but I listened to it."
Tandy dressed another burger. "Hate to burst your bubble, Cap, but you can't go back. She'll tear you apart with logic. Better move on." She cut it in half, Tyrone claiming the second half on his return to the table. Bucky noticed them move like yin and yang, perfectly in sync.
"Right," Bucky mumbled. I suppose I can't, for better or worse.
"You're up." Ty wiped the corner of his mouth. "Wasn't there a dance where the men did just that…between their legs…to the woman?"
There was a dance like that, and Bucky remembered fondly that Miss Dot with her red eyed pin was the last partner he'd had for it.
"You know what that means," Tandy giggled. "Go show us your granny-roll."