Steve learns some things about outer space, and spends some quality time with Sam.

Sam was glad to see Steve restored to his usual cheery self the next morning. Their day out to the mall had done him good, and they'd all had fun. Sure, he wasn't going to get over missing his mom just like that, but the rest of them could help him and keep him occupied, and yesterday had gone a long way toward convincing Steve that the rest of them did like having him around. (Bucky had filled them in on the other thing that had been bothering Steve, and Sam had felt a guilty little stab in his chest at how all their talk of 'fixing' Steve must have sounded to his nine-year-old self-worth. Not that they were going to give up on trying to restore Steve to his adult self, but until they figured out how, they could be more sensitive about it.)

"Mr. Sam?" Steve asked after breakfast.

"Yeah, man. What's up?"

"Me and Bucky were gonna build the pirate ship today. Do you want to play too?"

Sam smiled. "I'd love to. Why don't you go get it, and we'll set it up?"

Steve grinned and rushed off to his room to get it. He came back with a merrily rattling box. "Bucky's shaving," he said. "He said we could start without him."

"Alright," Sam said. "How about over here?" They picked an empty spot on the living room floor. Thor was in one of the chairs in the corner reading The Chamber of Secrets, having finished The Philosopher's Stone last night.

"Whoa," Steve said, looking at the little bags full of pieces as they opened the box. "That's so many. How do we know how to make it?"

"There's instructions right here," Sam said, picking up the manual.

Steve leafed through it while Sam opened all the little bags. "It's nice there's no words and just pictures. I mean, I could read it if there were words," he hurried to add. "But, you know, for people who don't know how to read, or maybe can't read English. That's nice of them."

"It is," Sam agreed. "They do sell these things all over the world."

"So we have to set all the pieces out first?" Steve asked, flipping back to the first page.

"Yep. Takes a little while, but it makes the building part easier."

"So, have you always been a superhero?" Steve asked, dumping out one of the bags and beginning to separate the pieces.

"No," Sam said, working on his own little pile. "Before I signed up with the Avengers, I was a soldier for a while."

"Really?" Steve asked. "My dad was a soldier. He was in the Great War."

Sam smiled. "Yeah, my dad was a soldier too. He was in Vietnam."

"What's that?" Steve asked.

"Oh, yeah, I guess you missed that one. It was a big war in the seventies."

Steve nodded. "And you wanted to be a soldier because of your dad?"

"Mostly," Sam allowed. "The Army also helped pay for me to go to college. That's where I did my counselor training."

"What kind of fighting did you do?"

"I worked in pararescue. We flew in to dangerous places and helped people get out."

"So, you were pretty much a superhero already, then," Steve said.

Sam smiled, feeling touched. "I guess you could say that."

"Is that how you met the Avengers?" Steve asked. "You helped them out in a fight or something?"

"No, actually, I left the Army first. My, ah…well, my wingman, Riley, who flew all my missions with me…He died. Got shot down."

Steve looked up at him sadly, compassion swimming in those bright blue eyes that was very Big Steve. "I'm sorry," he said. He shifted over a little closer to Sam and patted him on the knee. "My dad died in the war too."

Sam nodded, appreciating the little guy's empathy. "It just got too hard for me to be over there, after that happened to him. So I came home. I got a job helping other soldiers who'd had a hard time, trying to help them work things out and be okay."

Steve smiled. "My ma always says that there's all kinds of ways to be someone's hero, even if you never fight a fight. I mean, she usually says that to me when I get in a fight," he added a little sheepishly, and Sam swallowed down a laugh, knowing the point he was going for. "But she's still right, you know?" Steve pressed on. "People need people to help them, and it's real nice of you to do that." Steve smiled up at him warmly. "And you're good at it. You helped me feel better when I was sad the other day, and you're easy to talk to. You're good at taking care of people. And that's a hero kind of thing to do too."

Sam swallowed down an unexpected lump in his throat. "Thanks, Steve," he said softly. What was it with this kid? He was just like Big Steve, just…more concentrated, since all of that Big Steve compassion had to fit into this tiny little body.

Steve leaned over against his side and looped an arm around him in a hug. "You're welcome, Sam." It took him a second before he seemed to realize what he said, then he winced a little. "Sorry," he said. "I mean, Mr. Sam."

Sam chuckled. "It is very okay with me if you just call me 'Sam'."

"It is?" Steve asked, looking a little embarrassed.

"It is," Sam confirmed. "In fact…" He leaned in conspiratorially. "I kind of like it better."

Steve grinned. "Okay." He bit his lip like he was thinking something over. "Sam," he finished, still smiling.

"Okay," Sam repeated. "Steve." He held up a fist for a fist bump, which Steve returned. "What say we get back to work on this boat, huh? You know any good pirate stories?"

"I read Treasure Island," Steve said. "I bet this guy could be Long John Silver," he went on, picking up one of the shadier-looking pirate figurines.

"You ever hear of Captain Jack Sparrow?" Sam asked, knowing the answer was 'no'. "He had a ship called the Black Pearl, and he was on the run from his old crew, who had a curse on them…"

Sam, Bucky and Steve had worked on putting together Steve's new pirate ship all morning, stopping for a lunch break and putting construction on hold since Sam had some errands to run. Steve decided to spend the afternoon looking over his library books, and Natasha found him in one of the armchairs, lying on his stomach with his feet up over the back of the chair, resting his chin on his folded arms, a book about space in front of him.

"Hiya, Steve," she said. "That doesn't look comfortable."

"It is, actually," Steve said, looking up from his book. "It stretches me out."

"Well, it sure does that," she agreed. "Whatcha reading?"

"A book about space," Steve said. "Did you know that people have been in space?" he asked in complete awe. "In real rocket ships and everything!"

"I did know that, yeah."

"And they've been on the moon!" he exclaimed, even more excited by this piece of information. "See?" He flipped a couple of pages back in his book. "Lookit! That's an actual photo of an actual guy walking on the actual moon." He let out a huff of air, lost for words to describe how amazing that was.

Natasha smiled. Big Steve was still a pretty big space geek, more openly so now that Bucky was back. The two of them devoured old Star Trek and National Geographic space documentaries together. "It's pretty cool," she agreed.

"I can't believe people have been to space!" Steve said. He flipped a few more pages, back to the spot he'd stopped. "And look, there's robots we send out into space that take pictures and send them back to us. This is what real space looks like!" he said, pointing to a picture of the Horsehead Nebula.

She grinned. It was adorable how excited he was. "Maybe one day we'll get to go out there," she said. "Regular people, I mean, not just specially trained astronauts."

"Oh, that would be the best!" Steve said. "If I could go to space…" He trailed off dreamily. "I mean," he said, coming back. "They'd have to get better at oxygen and stuff like that. I don't think somebody with asthma like me could breathe very well in the kinds of ships they have now."

"Maybe not," Natasha allowed. "But people are making improvements all the time. Maybe one day it'll be as easy as getting in a car."

"You've never been to space, have you?" Steve asked.

"No. We've fought some aliens before, but just when they come here."

"You've seen actual aliens?" Steve asked in awe.

Natasha chuckled. "You have too. Thor's an alien."

"Oh, yeah." Steve had evidently forgotten that. "No, but I mean, like, not people-looking aliens."

"I've seen those too," Natasha said. "The ones we fought were called the Chitauri."

"What did they look like?" Steve wondered.

Natasha pulled out her phone and pulled up some pictures from Tony's files. Steve's jaw was on the floor by the time they were done.

"Wow," he breathed. "A real, actual alien invasion. Just like on the radio." He looked up at her curiously. "How often does stuff like that happen? Should we be on the lookout for alien attacks?" he asked, looking just a little bit nervous.

"It doesn't happen all that often," Natasha said, smiling and ruffling his hair. "They're not something people worry about most of the time."

"I guess that's good," Steve agreed, though he still looked a little uncertain.

"So what else are you learning from your space book?" she asked, steering the conversation back to less invasion-y topics.

"Did you know we put a little robot on Mars?" Steve asked, happily diverted. "It's called the Rover. It's up there exploring the planet all by itself and sending us pictures and science and stuff..."

So, Steve's starting to get a little more settled now.

Up next, Steve hangs out in the lab with Tony and learns about artificial intelligence.