ximilialog | (August Catch-All) The Things We Do

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(August Catch-All) The Things We Do

CHARACTERS: Sam Wilson & You (Open + Closed Starters)
LOCATION: Various aboard the station
DATE: Immediately post mission + the days after.
CONTENT: Catch-all prompts for post mission feelings
WARNINGS: Will be added to Top Levels

[ Top Levels in comments:
Infirmary: angsty hurt people after returning from the mission
Mess Hall: the evening post mission, after the food delivery, alcohol is on the table
Simulation Room: the day after the mission, sam disappears and can be found zoned out in the simulation room
Training Room: hot dude working up a sweat while training, various days post mission
Lab and Tech Storage: redwing is the best boi, fight me (and Sam)
TBA: maybe closed starters for Bucky/Natasha?

If you'd like a closed starter or have a different kind of thread idea for which none of these setups work, feel free to hit me at

inkcharm, Discord inkcharm#4573 or send me a PM. ]

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[ Natasha's pretty banged up and she's got a few cuts, but she's also used to nursing herself and by the time she comes to the infirmary, she's washed and bandaged what she could. Right now, she just wants something for the pain and maybe some spare bandages to swap to after her next shower. ]

You didn't break anything, did you?

[ She may not have Sam's skills, but enough time in the field has left her with priorities when it comes to triage. Broken bones, damaged organs and shrapnel in need of removal are the first thing she wants to eliminate. Beyond that, it's mostly down to disinfecting and resting up and she knows it.

Of course they've both had worse than this, physically, but not everything is about that. That's something she hadn't understood when she'd been younger. Sometimes the emotional scars of a mission never heal, even if no one can see them. ]

[ Neither of them carries their true scars on their skin, that much is right. And even though he knows Natasha is one of the few people he doesn't have to hide anything from, much less physical pain, to do so is second nature. To downplay this helps to downplay the hurts that no one can see. ]

Nothing's bruised as bad as my ego.

[ It's a joke, and not a good one, not with the electrical burn clearly visible. Sam sits up a little regardless, wincing, and gestures with the hand not holding the cold pack to the burn. ]

Hey... c'mere. Lemme look at that. I don't trust that you used those 5 years to learn how to die a bandage any better than you used to.

[ Despite the quip, Sam's voice is soft, though, tone almost but not quite a plea. He's not been able to look at her in Yuryeong, hallucinations turning her into a mockery of Riley's death. He wants to see for himself now that she's real, she's here, she'll be just fine.

He didn't lose her again. ]

[ Natasha wants to argue that she's fine. She's cleaned all the cuts and the rest is about avoiding infection. Of course, they both know that bandaging someone isn't always about keeping the blood in. There's comfort in bandaging up someone you care about. Hell, she'd be lying if she said there wasn't a little comfort in letting one of the few people she trusts actually take care of her. ]

I think I did it right.

[ She smiles softly, but moves closer to let him inspect her bicep where she's wrapped a bandage over a few stitches she'd given herself on the worst of the cuts she'd taken from a sword. It hurts like hell, but the bandage isn't soaking through so she figures she did a good enough job. The stitches underneath aren't very neat, either, but it hadn't exactly been the easiest angle one-handed. ]

You're going to have to let me look you over, too.

[ It's funny how small she feels right now. They're Avengers and they may not be the super-powered ones, but they have stood their own in some pretty intense situations with their team. They're both capable of a lot, yet right now Natasha feels like the smallest thing could crack her.

She can still feel the tremors of anxiety and paranoia from the infection. She'd fought against the cure, thinking they were trying to kill her or worse. She could have hurt someone. Hell, she could have forced someone she cares about to hurt her.

It leaves her feeling raw and exposed and she thinks this must be a little similar to how Bruce feels after he loses control. Even without doing damage, the guilt of the maybe that comes from the lack of control is still there and she can't ask Sam to do anything to stop her if something like that happens again. It will hurt him too much. He won't be able to, anyway. ]

[ It's easier like this, he thinks - easier not to fall apart when there's something who could bear witness. Someone who'd make it safe. Maybe it's because he wants to freefall without a safety net. Maybe it's because if he fell apart on her, he's not sure if she's feel safe any longer. Natasha's already seen more than he's comfortable with in most. They've shared dingy motel rooms with Steve and only one bed. The three of them have shared a single matress in the world's shittiest safe house. They've held each other through nightmares.

She knows his brother in law died while they were on the run, knows the look in his eyes at the realization that his sister was all alone with a toddler and a newborn, and he couldn't go to her, couldn't help her, couldn't do a single fucking thing for her.

She doesn't need to know about Riley, he thinks. She doesn't need to see him break apart over something he was meant to have grieved enough years ago.

But Sam's pretty good at picking up on things - and where she hasn't seen him in 5 years before Ximilia Station, for him it's only felt like six months. So he taps a finger against the cold pack. ]

Here, can you hold that for a moment?

[ Waits until she does, then studies the bandage on her arm. As expected the bandage is fine, but the stitches leave room for improvement - he'll need to have a talk with Bucky and her about not being stupid and just coming to him with things like this, about letting his training to some good for them, too.

And still...

With Natasha standing close and holding the ice pack to his burn, Sam winds the now free arm around her and draws her close. Holds her. ]

Yeah, you did good enough. You're gonna be alright.

[ He's not longer talking about the bandage. Because what Yuryeong put her through wasn't on her, same as the Winter Soldier's not on Bucky. Doesn't help the guilt, Sam understands that much. Doesn't change the subtle trembling in her that he's trying to help her soothe. Sam's voice is a low, soft rumble. ]

It's okay.

[ Maybe not now, maybe not in the nights to come, but they'll get there. He won't let Natasha sink. ]

[ Holding the cold pack to Sam's burn helps her feel a little more useful. In the five years after the snap, she'd gotten so frayed, edges coming apart and threads shedding all over. She knows Steve had been the same. They'd lost too much and they'd been left with no ideas other than keeping what they knew together.

Natasha can't go back to the person she was before. She's strong, but there are bits of her now that can't take the hit. She'll tear like paper if she gets pulled wrong and she hates that. It leaves her feeling so weak in ways that cuts and broken bones and bullet holes never have, because she can take whatever the world throws at her, but she's just not sure how much more she can survive having things taken away.

She leans in more when she feels his arm around her, careful not to jostle the ice pack. ]

I learned from the best.

[ Sam is safe to Natasha the same way Steve is. Nothing could change that, because she has full faith in him that he will always, always do what he thinks is right. They won't always agree, but Natasha's faith in who Sam is is unwavering. He's not a man who stabs anyone in the back. He's too good. ]

[ Sam makes a soft sound, just shakes his head. He knows his worth, but it ain't that. He's just one man, riddled with trauma and grief that sits deep and goes unadressed by his own choosing. Rising to the occasion because failure is not an option.

And he wishes nothing more than to be able to say that it wasn't worth losing her for any of this, but the truth is that he knows he'd have done the same as she did. Made the same play, forced whoever was on that planet with him to make it out alive, same as she did.

They got trillions of people back thanks to her, and it would be horrible to even consider that not worth it. But right now, holding her close, Sam thinks it anyway. He knows it's because Yuryeong has pushed his buttons hard, has made him think only in terms of personal losses, fresh trenches dug into his heart with every burnt and mangled corpse his friends and team mates turned into.

Bucky's the only one Sam's not seen that way by virtue of blindfolding Sam for a few blissful hours of reprieve from the onslaught on his senses. Sam knows his nights will be filled with his friends falling, burning, dying. ]

Complimenting yourself, I see.

[ A joke, if a soft one. To him, Natasha's been the best of the bunch in many ways. Steve has been that, too, in other ways. He'd not have survived two years on the run without them. Still isn't sure how he's surviving without them now. ]

[ Five years. It had been too long without Sam. Natasha isn't the sort of person who takes a lot for granted in her life. She can't. She's had to change too much and so often to let herself really get comfortable with much.

Somewhere along the way, though, she'd started to have a family. It's messy and complicated, but she knows that's what family is. She never had a sister the way Sam had or a Bucky like Steve. She'd only had her fake little family from a single mission and so for her, all of the Avengers had slipped into these spots in her heart that she hadn't even realized she'd had anymore.

There's a special place for Sam and Steve and their time on the run, especially. Natasha had used every contact she could to get them set up and keep them going, but without them she would have just been surviving. Standing here now with Sam, it reminds her of what actually living is. It's not about a cushy apartment or fancy new technology. It's about the people she's with. ]

"That others may live."

[ The quote just slips out as she smiles a little and pulls back just enough to look Sam in the eyes, her face turning a little more serious and searching. ]

You're too humble as usual, Cap, but I've got your number.

[ Sam ducks his head, and Natasha will be familiar with that expression on him. With the way he glances down and slightly to the side, smiling with a bright flash of teeth, shy and bashful in those ways he so rarely is. It's the expression he gets when someone compliments him in a way that hits just right, in those small ways that he'd never admit to needing to hear. Other times, it's the expression he gets when someone flirts with him. Natasha is observant and little slips past her. Sam gets like this when men flirt with him a little more often than women, perhaps for the novelty of it, perhaps for a mild preference. But either way, it's a little harder to catch him off guard with flirting than with the sort of genuine praise or compliments he's so prone to brushing off. Harder to see this.

Cap from people whose opinion on the title matters?

Yeah. That'll get him, apparently. ]

You always did.

[ A brief tightening of his arm before he drops his forehead on her shoulder. His cheeks are flushed warm. Heat's crept up the back of his neck, too. ]

Cap, huh?

[ One thing for her to know it's the title he claims months past her point in time, another for her to acknowledge it like this, to affirm it this easily. Sam's not prone to imposter syndrome - that was never what his issues with the shield were about. In the face of more people who have every reason to think 'Steve Rogers' when they think 'Cap', though, this hits different.

So, quietly: ]

Thank you.

[ Sam and Steve aren't the same person. Natasha knows this well enough, but the things they have in common? Those are the qualities Natasha would take a million bullets for.

No. Bullets are easy for all of them to jump in front of. She'd take a million uncomfortable emotional moments of vulnerability for Sam. All of them, because he's probably one of the strongest people she knows. He's kept his heart safe in the face of so many things that could have hardened it. That is worth protecting, she thinks.

So she leans in, returning the lingering embrace and resting her head against his. ]

You earned it. You've earned more than I could ever have given you.

[ She turns her head to kiss his temple and then whispers: ]

But I think you'd have looked better in a black catsuit.

[ She's wrong on part of it, but Sam knows there's little use telling her, because he doesn't think he's heard anything that she wouldn't have given him, too, and then some. Natasha is good in ways she doesn't always see, and she, too, deserves so much more than what she got.

Has Sam only earned the title, but not the right to keep his loved ones close? Is he doomed to lose them all, one after another, and always remain behind, bleeding from the deep trenches in his heart faster than he can fill them back up with love?

He huffs a chuckle against her neck at the final statement though and pretends not to tremble slightly at the kiss to his temple. This, Sam thinks, is something he would like to give her more of - the opportunity to just exist softly, close and comfortable, hold and held. His voice is soft with emotion, but the humor doesn't fade. They can do this - walk the tightrope between emotion and levity, not pushing too hard in either direction. Be each other's safety net. ]

I would rock a black catsuit. Don't think the world could have taken all three of us in dark, sexy outfits, though.

[ Meaning her, Bucky and himself. Because she said she'd come back - and Sam trusts and believes those words. ]

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(August Catch-All) The Things We Do

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