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It’s not that Sam doesn’t enjoy hanging out in Stark Tower. Honestly, enjoy isn’t even a good enough word to encompass how great it is to watch Steve try to keep up that weird grumpy grandpa persona around Tony Stark, or how cool it was to have the computer answer him when he was wandering lost down a hallway talking to himself and trying to remember where the bathroom was. It was some Star Trek shit, and Sam’s only human, okay. It was awesome.
It’s just that it’s been a long few weeks, and Sam’s had enough of those that he knows what he’s talking about. He was starting to think he’d never get Steve to slow down and take care of himself, but then Bucky’s trail went cold. After nearly a week with no sign of him, Sam had finally talked Steve into taking a few days to regroup, and Steve had taken him to the only sure safe haven he had left.
Soft beds or not, he and Steve both slept for the better part of a day once Tony set them up with a suite in the tower. The water pressure alone has a guilty part of Sam hoping they can just stay there for a few extra days, or a month or three. You know, whatever.
The turnaround time from Stark looking at Sam with poorly-disguised suspicion to Stark getting on his case about the goddamn Avengers Initiative couldn’t have been more than forty-five minutes, and he’s still tired enough that it’s got his head spinning. Steve doesn’t seem to be doing too much better, so when he suggests they go out and get some air, Sam’s happy to agree.
It’s October, but it’s unseasonably nice out for New York, and they stop for coffee before wandering up into Central Park. For the most part they keep quiet as they walk up around the lake, just enjoying how relatively peaceful it is, even if Sam can’t stop laughing at the way Steve ducks his head and tugs at the brim of his hat every time he thinks a jogger gives him a second look. Sam gets it, though; he hasn’t actually been recognized in public since the Triskelion, but even knowing there are grainy photos of him on the internet makes his skin crawl a little. He can’t imagine what it’s like for someone who’s as much in the public eye as Steve.
“I can’t help but notice,” Sam says, finally breaking the silence and eyeing Steve’s caramel macchiato (with whipped cream, dude). “You only drink black coffee when Stark’s around.”
“Hmm?” Steve gives him a blank look, taking a sip of his drink.
“I’m just saying, there’s that, and maybe I wouldn’t think anything of it if I weren’t about ninety-five percent sure you keep typing slow on your phone just to aggravate him.”
“Sam,” Steve chides, but his eyes are bright. “Would I do something like that?”
Sam snorts a laugh. “Nah, I guess not. You probably wouldn’t give a guy a hard time about his pace on his morning run, either.” He cuts Steve a flat look. “You’ve just got a heart of gold, man.”
“You know me,” Steve agrees, openly grinning now. “Hey, did you know Tony thinks we didn’t have porn in the forties?” Sam chokes a little. “You should’ve been there yesterday when I asked him what Fifty Shades of Grey was.”
“Oh my god,” Sam says, “what did he say?”
“Nothing, really; he just gaped at me for a minute, then he pulled his phone out and started typing, and then JARVIS conveniently called him away to a meeting.”
“I don’t know why people think you’re some paragon of goodness,” Sam lies, shaking his head and grinning down at the pavement.
It’s not until they’re almost on top of it that Sam realizes they’ve been walking toward Belvedere Castle, but it’s not surprising that his feet would carry him here—this has been his favorite part of the park since he was a kid. He got plenty of shit for being a baby birder, but it didn’t really matter when he got to come here in the fall to watch for the migrating hawks. He and Steve end up leaning against the railing overlooking the turtle pond, falling into an easy silence again. After a few minutes, Steve sighs.
“I wanted to tell you,” he starts, not looking at Sam. “I’m sorry Tony’s been on your case so much about the Avengers. I think we were all supposed to be this team, and then after the Chitauri were gone we all drifted apart.” He shakes his head. “I still saw Natasha all the time, but Thor went back home,” he says, gesturing vaguely toward the sky. "And who knows where Clint is. I know Bruce spends some time at the tower, but…” He shrugs. “It just didn’t work out like we thought, I guess.”
“I don’t mind,” Sam says, shaking his head. “I’m just not sure I’m exactly what y’all are looking for.” He knows from talking to Steve that even if they’re supposed to be superheroes, they’ve all got their issues to work through the same as Sam. But he also knows he’s found a good place at the VA, and he’s comfortable, and the last time his life got a big shake-up was when he separated from active duty—fighting Nazis at the Triskelion notwithstanding, obviously. He just doesn't know if he's ready to uproot everything again.
“Sam.” Steve finally meets his eyes, his expression achingly earnest. “Not everybody on the team is superpowered. Clint and Natasha are just really, really good at what they do, same as you are with the wings. Don’t ever tell Tony this, but he’s right.” He smiles a little. “It’d be great to have someone else with eyes up high, watching our backs.”
Now, Sam knows Steve means well, and it's actually pretty sweet, but Sam hadn’t meant to imply anything about his own value—or lack thereof—in combat. He knows it’s probably stupid, but the fact that Steve feels the need to coddle him about it gets under his skin a little.
“It’s not like I don’t have anything going for me besides the wings,” he scoffs, and Steve cocks his head. Sam honestly doesn’t realize the bullshit he’s about to spin until it’s already coming out of his mouth. “I’m, like, king of the birds, you know.” It’s not difficult to say it like it’s a fact, since it was easily his most frequently recurring childhood fantasy. He’d leave it there, but he really doesn’t fuck with Steve as often as he should.
“King of the birds,” Steve repeats, voice flat and one eyebrow creeping up.
“Yeah, dude. You don’t think it takes a special kind of person to volunteer for the Falcon project?” Sam laughs a little, shaking his head. “I think I loved birds more than anyone else there, and Riley gave me shit for it all the time, but still.” It’s a relief not to feel so much pressure on his chest when he says Riley’s name these days.
“Okay,” Steve says after a moment. “I’ll bite. What does the king of the birds do? Do you have a queen? Is your throne made of twigs?” He looks disgustingly pleased with himself.
“I don’t have a queen.” Sam shoots Steve a dirty look. “Don’t be so heteronormative,” he mutters, and now both of Steve’s eyebrows are up, and Sam silently cheers himself for that smooth, low-key coming out. He’s been worried about it since he first checked out Steve’s shoulders in that ludicrous shirt he runs in—Steve doesn’t come across as the guy to mind, but it’s different when you’re bunking with a guy for weeks on end—but Steve only looks a little surprised, not bothered.
“Sorry,” he says, putting his hands up and smirking. “I’m out of my depth here.”
“Well,” Sam says airily, leaning back on the railing. “For one thing, I can talk to birds.”
“Yeah, so can everyone.” Steve rolls his eyes. “Yesterday I saw a grown man tell a bird to fuck off from his hot dog cart.”
“Right, but they actually listen to me.” Sam remembers dreaming about being a bird when he was a kid, and seeing what they could see, and talking to them about all the stuff they’d seen when they were flying around. Sam was maybe a weird kid, but it all comes back so easily that he can feel himself smiling involuntarily. “They tell me stuff, you know? I don’t know,” he shrugs. “They just like me.”
Steve just narrows his eyes, pulling his hat off and running his hand through his hair. “You are so full of shit,” he accuses, but he looks amused.
Sam’s honestly about to laugh it off, thinking maybe he can share a little with Steve about his childhood—Steve seems to open up more about his own when it’s a back-and-forth instead of a glorified history lesson—when something incredible happens. Like, one-in-a-million incredible.
It’s almost like it’s in slow-motion, the way the hawk swoops low over them toward the Castle, and shits right in Steve’s hair like the dude’s got a bullseye on his head.
Steve’s eyes go wide and he ducks, but it’s way too late, and he instinctively reaches up to brush at his hair with his eyes following up. It seems to click just in time, and he pulls his hand away from the mess in his hair. He shoots Sam a dirty look when Sam starts laughing, but god, his face. Sam’s going to have to file “did that bird really take a crap on Captain America” as one of his top ten Steve Rogers faces, not that he’s got a list or anything.
“You wanna talk more trash about me and my birds?” he asks, folding his arms and smiling. “Because one of us is full of shit right now, and it sure ain’t me.”
Steve’s face contorts through about three different expressions before settling on what looks like confused disbelief.
“You were making that up,” he insists, but he’s clearly less sure about that than he was a minute ago.
“Okay,” Sam says, shrugging, because there’s no need to make anything else up, not after that. He flashes a quick grin up at the hawk, giving it a sloppy salute even though it's now studiously ignoring them. “Come on, let’s head back so you can wash your hair, Cap.”
“Ugh.” Steve frowns, reaching up again and then dropping his arm with a sigh. “Tony’s never gonna let me hear the end of this. Even if I sneak past him, I think JARVIS is programmed to send him gossip.”
“I think JARVIS is better than that, man,” Sam tells him, but Steve’s probably not looking forward to trekking back to the tower with his hat off and bird shit drying in his hair, either. They end up in the public restroom, with Steve’s head under the faucet and Sam scrubbing his hair with hand soap from the dispenser.
“This is disgusting,” Sam says cheerfully, because the mess is mostly gone now and he’s sort of enjoying running his hands through Steve’s hair with a good excuse.
“Yeah, well, it’s your fault,” Steve grumbles, voice a little muffled, and Sam can feel himself breaking into a grin because the seed’s been planted, his work is done, and Steve’s always at least going to suspect there’s some truth to this whole talking-to-birds thing.
“You’ve got a point,” Sam says as he rinses the last of the soap out of Steve’s hair and shuts the tap off. Steve stands up, shaking the water out of his hair like a goddamn Golden Retriever. “Hey, quit that!” Sam holds his hands up to stop his shirt from getting wet. “Someone’s got to clean this bathroom, you know.”
“It was just water,” Steve huffs, but he looks mildly ashamed, so Sam rolls his eyes and grabs a few paper towels. Steve ducks down just a little so Sam can reach up and rub at his hair, drying it as much as he can, and Sam honestly doesn’t realize how close they are until he glances down and sees Steve— oh. Steve is definitely staring at his mouth.
“Oh,” he says faintly, and Steve’s eyes flick up to his before glancing back down when Sam involuntarily licks his lips.
“Yeah?” Steve asks, way too breathy for a guy his size, as he meets Sam’s eyes again. Sam has barely even started nodding when Steve’s on him, kissing him like he’s a starving man and Sam’s the last sandwich on the plate. Except no, that’s an awful metaphor, but Sam can feel his brain melting as Steve’s tongue slips into his mouth. Sam pushes into it as hard as he can, grinning against Steve’s mouth when one hand snakes around Sam’s back and the other gets a healthy handful of his ass and pulls.
“You trying to be queen of the birds?” Sam leans back far enough to ask, smirking and breathless, but Steve just makes an unbelievably hot frustrated growling noise and pulls Sam back in, sliding his hand from Sam’s spine up to the back of his head.
Sam’s barely had a moment to process that he’s getting an erection in a public restroom when the door opens and he hears a gasp. He and Steve jerk apart, and Sam turns around to see some hipster kid with his eyes darting back and forth between them like he thinks he’s hallucinating.
“I thought this stuff didn’t happen in the park til nighttime,” he says, and then his face turns bright red and he beats a quick retreat. Sam can’t help laughing, although he has a moment of worried doubt when he looks back to find Steve staring pointedly at the floor, hat already back on his head. When Steve’s head comes up, though, he’s got a smile on that’s so sheepish and innocent Sam wants to drag him straight to bed.
“Sam?” Steve says, his expression dimming into a slight frown. His brow furrows. “What happens in the park at night?”
Sam feels his eyes widen a little before narrowing again; if he hadn’t been in Steve’s back pocket for the last however long, he might not notice the gleam in his eyes, but he recognizes it now.
“Oh, you absolute asshole,” Sam laughs. “Tell you what, how about you ask Stark and let me know what you find out.”
Steve’s laughter practically echoes off the walls. “You know, that’s a fantastic idea.” He gives Sam a sly look. “Did a little birdie tell you that?”
“Oh my god.” Sam covers his face and heads for the door. “We’re breaking up. I can’t believe you wasted that joke already; that doesn’t even make sense.”
“Don’t worry,” Steve says happily, following him out. “I’ve got plenty more good ones waiting in the wings.”
Sam’s pretty sure they can hear his horrified laughter all the way in Harlem.