Chapter Text
It didn’t matter if it was back home in his dingy, little Manhattan apartment, or the S.H.I.E.L.D. dorm compound up in top-secret, classified, north of interstate confidential, Sam Wilson finds himself starting his day off as he usually did, in bed staring at his alarm clock. Doing his best to see if he had the latent superpower to stop time so he could go back the hell to sleep, as he was usually want to do. It really is true what they say, the more things change the more they stay the same—whoever the hell they were supposed to be.
Granted, back then it was his phone’s clock he’d be concentrating on and not this actual physical one on his dorm’s nightstand. If it wasn't so annoying it’d honestly be pretty funny. Seriously, all this Stark money being thrown around for things like, teleporters, Danger Rooms, Unstable Molecule uniforms, and an honest-to-go Shawarma station in the cafeteria, and yet of all the places the big dogs in charge had drawn the lines on was giving out communicators for the students? No wristwatch, no Avengers ID card, nothing. They weren’t even allowed to bring their own phones from home!
Apparently, it had something to do with national security concerns or something? Which, Sam could buy honestly. If their protection from online attacks was anything like the kind they had on campus, S.H.I.E.L.D. really couldn’t afford the risk—as Sam's after-hours flights outside the premises could testify.
Though…. Said teen was willing to put money on that just being some sort of weird, secret test put by principal Rogers, and that there was some really deep, philosophical lesson to it or something.
After all, he of all people had managed to circumvent them.
…God. What he wouldn’t have given to be able to check in on Sarah now.
Giving up on the clock, Sam rolls over to stare at the ceiling, unable to help but wonder just how his baby sister is doing. He had known from the start a deal like this had been too crazy good to be true. A full-ride scholarship, superhero training, free childcare? It was so good, you’d have to have stupid tattoo’ed on your forehead in bold comic sans to accept such an obvious HYDRA trap.
Come on, men in black suits pull up in a SUV to your place telling you they’re special ops here to give you all that crap and more? It couldn't be more of a supervillain trap if they tried. Sam had counted himself lucky to have called in the Avengers Hotline when he did before things got out of hand… only to feel real stupid when THE Hydra Stomper had showed up at his front door to tell him this was no joke.
It was all just so… strange. He knew he had been living on borrowed time as it was. Ever since his parents had died he had been dreading the day some government stooge showed up to try and tear him and Sarah apart, the only other family each other had left. He had already dropped out of school to pick up whatever odd jobs he could to make ends meet for them—so for said social worker to tell him they were actually here cuz he had popped up on their Mutate radar as a candidate for their Young Avengers Initiative… had thrown him for a real loop.
How could he have known that the kind of day he’d been dreading was the day he had been… well, saved.
Though it was hard to say he wasn’t still feeling like his goose was being prepared to be cooked with the way life seemed to have a ‘thing’ for throwing him out of the frying pan and into the broiler.
“Mmm~” Rings out a tired-sounding voice “Bonjour, mon beau, Sam. C'est déjà l'heure du cours. Non?”
Scared absolutely shitless, Sam is snapped out of his usual navel-gazing routine. Whirling around at the sudden whisper by his ear, the teen throws his covers and leaps off the bed, sliding into a textbook S.H.I.E.L.D. defensive stance as he readies himself to face his intruder in deadly mortal combat, in nothing but the plain tank top and boxers he had gone to sleep in. Far from the traditional superhero pose one might see on a front issue cover for even a rag like the Daily Globe—though personally preferable in regards to the state of dress of his intruder, to the mag’s censors at least.
Or lack of dress—as she was oh so fond of ‘dressing’ when it was just the two of them like this.
“Hihihi!” Sharon giggles. The schoolgirl damn near belly-laughing at his reaction. Doing her best, in vain, to contain herself from further wounding Sam’s newly sore pride, as well as from preventing her boobs from spilling out too much from underneath what was Sam’s blanket.
“Sh-Sharon!”
His face hot over just how little of his friend’s body was left up to his imagination in from such thin sheets, Sam jerks his eyes away and does his best to face the wall. Sharon for her part, merely snorts at that, before pausing to do what Sam was sure was a tre amazing eye-roll.
“Oh, you Homericans and your hangups. I swear. If I didn’t know any better I’d think you were to trying to give a girl a complex.”
Incensed, Sam turns back to give her an accusatory look—before recognizing the bait for what it was and going back to watching the paint dry.
Yep, same as it was last night.
“Hangups!? Oh, nononono-no! No, girl! It's actually crazy simple! I told you already, stop sneaking into my room! I lock my door for a reason y’know!”
Sharon bobs her head and lazily flicks her wrist, only half-paying attention to Sam’s usual spiel about “personal space” and “boundaries,” before rising seated on the bed to stretch and shake the sleepiness out of her bones. Even throwing in a small groan as she pops her muscles as a little auditory treat for him.
Sam had been doing commendably well to keep his naked friend out of sight, but he wasn’t able to do a thing to keep himself from hearing her out—he had to. He had learned his lesson the hard way about keeping both his eyes and ears off the gallic gamine from last time.
“Ohonhon. Oh, yes. How could I forget about the oh-so-powerful and awe-inspiring American innovation that goes behind your twenty-first creations? What was it called again? Your… doorlock? How superbe. Truly, we didn’t have anything so incredible as that back in my time.“
It was right about now Sam got the urge to bang his head against the wall at yet another one of his partner’s… antics. It was no wonder Sharon was so insistent her codename be changed to be more of a send-up to her sister’s. The girl was anything but milquetoast, as her rather plain codename may have suggested. Even if Sam personally didn’t see much problem with it. Agent 13? No, yeah. Perfect. No notes. This white girl was nothing but trouble.
Today though, Sam wasn’t feeling much up for going along battling out with Sharon. He had already been beating himself up enough lately as is.
“*Sigh* Could you just… get dressed already, Shar? We’re gonna be late.”
In defiance, Sharon just sinks back into his bed and makes herself comfortable. “Oh? We are leaving so soon? You haven’t even showered yet. And I was so looking forward to today’s show…”
Her eyes go half-lidded. "Of course, if you really feel you are in such a rush, I wouldn’t mind stepping in to help… scrub your back. Maybe even wash some of those hard-to-reach areas~ Non? How about it…?” Sharon coyly punctuates as she bites her thumbnail.
Her bright blue eyes, as clear and gorgeous as the Côte d'Azur on the Mediterranean, leering approvingly up and down her partner’s half-dressed body.
It would have been pretty flattering all things considered. You’d be hard-pressed to have any other young man Sam’s age kicking up much of a fuss about Sharon’s… forwardness as much as he did—provided that this was as far as she went with it.
“How about it? Monsieur Noir?”
Annnnnd there it was.
Sam grits his teeth. He was really not in the mood for this right now.
“Oh like you bathe more than once a week anyway.” He snaps.
But all his jab at twentieth-century hygiene routines earns him is a quirk of the blonde’s eyebrow. “Hmm? Is that your way of telling my ou naturel displeases you? How funny. I don't seem to recall you seeming too bothered by it while you were sleeping. Why, I seem to remember you couldn’t get enough of me—if the way your face seemed to adore being buried in my nape had anything to say about it.
Cause… I’ll be the first to admit it if you are too frightened to, SamueI. I couldn’t get enough of yours.”
Sam shuts his eyes and waves her off. “Just… Just go already.”
Sharon pouts. Sam’s mind’s eye betraying his actual ones by being able to paint clearly for him anyway the image of the French girl’s beautiful light-pink lips rounded out in such sweet sarcastic agony.
“Really, Sam? You’d throw me out of your bed? Just like that? I thought we were so much more than that…”
Rising up, Sharon lets the sheets slip away where they may as she trawls forward crawling to Sam on her hands and knees. Her lithe, little body as au natural as the day she was born.
“I figured you for a better man than that, Faucon. You are, after all, so much better than any other men I’ve seen, mon chéri chocolat~”
Only now, does Sam’s fists tighten. It was way too early in the morning for this shit.
“Sharon. I mean it. Get out.”
Kicking her bare feet up, Sharon just… parks her chin on her arms. Daring him to do something. “Or else what Sam? You’ll carry me out? Oh, what a nightmare that would be. To be in the arms of my Noir Roi~ like that.”
“More like tossed out flat on your ass in the hallway!” Sam bares out through clenched teeth. He really didn’t feel right threatening girls, but he would do it if that's what it took. He was seriously at his limit. If Sharon didn’t back off and get the message already he didn’t know what he’d do.
Putting a finger to her cheek, Sharon looks up and to the corner as if she's seriously considering his threat. “I don’t know about that… That… how do you say… public display of amour, doesn’t do much for me. Can’t you think of anything else you’d rather do to me? Or perhaps for me to do you? For instance, I can think of quite a few—“
Sam bangs his fist against the wall, cutting her off. “Shut up already, will you?”
If Sharon is at all perturbed by his little show of force she makes little a sign of it. “…Hmm. Someone’s grumpy today.”
“Oh piss off. I’ll see you in class, Carter.”
Sharon narrows her eyes. “It's Cartier.” The anglolization of her sister’s family name by those “shrimps” “across the pond” had been a sore point of contention with Sharon since her crash course with world history, the last eighty-plus years. God forbid the Saxons accept their champion as being anything but theirs.
That’s why Sam had gone there. A low blow that he wasn’t exactly proud of, as much as Sharon was asking for it. “Whatever. I got more important shit to do today than listen to you yap.”
He heads for the door, all prepared to storm out dramatically and everything, when the doorknob refuses to open.
He twists at it again, and again, but it's no use. The damn thing was stuck. Something that didn’t make any sense considering it only locked from the inside—until he notices the utterly fried electronic keypad beside his traditional lock setup.
“Sharon.” He closes his eyes again. Head somehow pounding even worse than before. “What did you do?”
But Sharon, uncharacteristically, doesn’t have a response for that. She’s not even looking at him now, seemingly content to focus on her nails, rather than Sam for once.
“Sharon! I’m not kidding around! What did you do to my door?!”
“Hmm? Did you say something? Pardon me, Monsieur Wilson. I didn’t realize we were speaking again. I do have permission to speak right? Sir?”
“What did you do, Shar?”
“Nothing too bad. Just a favor.”
“A… favor?”
“Yes, a favor. I believe you still have those things nowadays. They didn’t go away with the dinosaures did they? If so I’m sure I could get Lune to help explain the concept to you if it gives you so much trouble.”
Sam only barely catches himself from laying himself into Sharon again. As much as he wanted to scream at her again, he could see he was gonna get nowhere fast with that.
Taking some deep breaths, Sam does what he can to reign it in. Just because Shar was in a mood didn’t mean he had to stoop to her level.
“And… how exactly, is this supposed to be a favor to me?” He asks, in his best diplomatically terse tone.
“Simple. With the number I did on your door, you are not getting out of your room anytime soon. At least, not without the help of your Wings, which I have already stored back in my room. By my estimation, we have… at least a couple hours before anyone notices our absence and comes to check up on us.”
Sam just… could not with this girl.
“And… how exactly does that help me?”
“Because now you will be missing today’s training exercises due to circumstances outside of your control. I’m sure they’ll have quite a few words to say about it, but they certainly won't kick you out.”
Only now does she finally return to meeting him in the eyes. “Which is more than I can say what they will likely do if you really do skip out on today's exercise to meet up with those A.I.M. stormtroopers you have your little rendezvous with.”
All at once the righteous indignation Sam’s temper was feeding on dissipates like so much smoke. The wind completely ripped from his sails.
“How… did you—“ He gets out before stopping himself. He didn’t need to know the details. He should’ve figured. Should’ve known better really. Who was he to think he would be able to get one over past a whole school of super-spies and capes? His partner wasn’t at the top of their class because of who her sister was.
Neither Falcon nor Agent 13 say anything for a while. A terse air filling up the room as both teens search for just what to say.
“…I know you are better than this. To team up with A.I.M. That’s what vexes me. Tell me, Sam. What were you thinking? What could they have possibly promised you to have you think this was at all a good idea? Don’t you tell me it was for money. I’ve… already had my fill of good men who lost their souls for little more than some pieces of silver.
She glances down. “…I don’t know what I will do if I have to add you to such a list.”
Sam shakes his head. “No, no. It wasn’t…. like that.” Irritation slipping into his tone that his… friend would insinuate as much. Thor knew he lost the right to feel insulted.
Still though. Money?
“You really think I’d be doing this for that? What kind of guy do you take me for?”
Now she glances away out the small window overlooking the campus outside. “A far better kind than the sort you seem dead-set on acting like now. Enlighten me then. What other reason could there be?”
Sam slowly unclenches his jaw, already feeling himself about to let slip what he’s been bottling up—damn how little how he wanted to admit it aloud, least of all to someone it was safe to admit he could no longer refer to as a friend.
“I don’t know. How about—y’know… some actual powers.”
And there it was. The dark cloud that hung around Sam Wilson like bad body spray from the moment he had discovered his super-abilities. There wasn’t a kid around who didn’t dream of being doused in just the right assortment of chemicals, or inter-dimensional space rays to become a superhero. Sam just had the fortune to be the kind that had to be born with it.
It wasn’t exactly the kind of thing he could share, even with the S.H.I.E.L.D. counselors. How exactly do you tell someone you feel self-conscious you have shitty powers—when you had the obvious answer of being directed to taking that up with Beast, or The Thing, or the ever-evolving and unstable Nitro. Being a bird trainer is kinda small potatoes compared to the kind of stuff the enhanced that weren’t able to walk out in public had to deal with. Sam had it easy all possibilities considered.
That’s why he couldn’t talk about it with anyone. Not even with his parents back when they were still around. He had loved and idolized his father, still did, but how does a little kid confess to a minister of all people that they weren’t some mutated spawn of the devil? Even if their father wasn’t one of those freaks that spew that kind of hateful garbage on the news—there had always that chance that he’d show otherwise.
And it was a chance young Sam had not been willing to take—his mom and dad passing without ever truly knowing him.
Sam was in nowhere’s land. A lone island even in the colorful archipelago that was Avengers Academy. Too lame to hang with the heavy hitters but had it too easy to chill with the sob stories. It was why even as the Mutate that he was, he was in in the peak human course at all, rather than with the enhanced he should have been with.
“And that’s why you believed A.I.M. and in their so-called… Cosmic Cube fragment?”
Sam nods. Completely unsurprised by how just much Sharon seemed to know about the back door deal offered to him.
Now, it's her turn to snap.
“And if it was a trap? If they just… shot you in the gut and left you lying there on the floor to die? Drained you for every ounce of blood you had for one of their sick experiments? Left you strung up on the campus gates as a message?”
Putting his hands to his side, Sam opens his palms outside. His answer painfully clear.
And he earns one hell of a slap across the face for it.
Sharon’s hand sends Sam reeling back, almost knocking the teen on his ass with how much force she put behind it.
Even though Sharon is the one who is close to tearing up.
“You estupid-stupid-stupid man.
Sam braces himself for another deserved slap, but the blow never comes. Instead, its Sharon’s arms that come around, this time around his shoulders.
It's an awkward reach with how much taller than her as he was but Sharon doesn’t falter in her grip. Sam unable to himself from soon losing himself in it.
It's not like he was unfamiliar with hugs or anything. It was just… as the older brother, he had been the one who had to stay strong and give them out, rather than receive them. He had almost… forgotten how nice it was to be held, even… comforted.
“You know, Sam. You are not the only one who feels… inadequate.”
Sam is taken aback—and if he had the arm room he would’ve smacked himself for it. Cuz, yeah. Complaining about feeling powerless, to someone actually powerless? Smooth. Real smooth.
But there is no accusation in Sharon’s tone, as much as Sam believes he deserves it for being so self-absorbed.
All Sharon sounds, is understanding.
“…Do you know how many times I too wished I could do more? Every week back home, I would be there in the town plaza in my best dress, waving off yet another regiment of young men being sent to the front line. When every time, I wish I had been able to join them.”
She laughs weakly. “Of course, they would never let me. Even if I had been a boy I was too young to be allowed to serve. Besides, my Papa was old money. He would never have allowed such a thing. Even when Paris fell, he told me to run. Even as he himself stayed and fought.”
Eyes hazy in memory, Sharon blinks away the tears starting to form to look up at Sam.
“But I didn’t let that stop me. And I didn’t let those Boches either. I forced my way into the resistance and did everything I could to prove the naysayers wrong. I wasn’t the strongest, or the fastest, or the smartest. So what I lacked, I made up for with dedication and heart. Do not let yourself succumb to despair, Samuel. Nothing we do is for nothing. For even the smallest person may change the course of history.”
“Your… Resistance motto…?” Sam mumbles out in awe, starstruck by the courage and wisdom of ages long past. Inspired by the history of the world in a way no other schoolteacher had managed to. Why, it was like hearing a speech from Captain Carter herself.
But Sharon shakes her head, clarifying his misconception. “No, Samuel. Just Tolkien.”
She laughs, and Sam can’t help but laugh with her. He had been the one telling her to catch up in some cinema that wasn’t in black and white. Even just remembering the face Sharon made upon learning there had been a sequel to The Hobbit, a trilogy of talkies no less, was enough to put a smile on his face.
The dour mood in the air utterly lifted, Sam feels lighter than he has been in quite a while. His clear head only now realizing—Sharon was still very much naked.
Stiffening, Sam quickly pulls his hands away from the embrace he had unconsciously started returning. A part of him feeling all the lesser for having done as much.
“Uh, Sharon? You can-um, let go now.”
In response, she just holds him even tighter. Burying her face deeper into his collarbone, as well as her chest against his.
“S-Sharon?”
“Nnh…”
“Sharon?”
“Hmm… Non.”
Sam blinks, dimly. “Non?”
“Non.”
“Non?! What do you mean non?”
“It means no.” She murmurs dreamily.
“I know what Non means, girl!”
“Good... So you understand I will not be letting you go until you get the message.”
“I-I got the message Shar. You can let go now.
“Non. Not until you say it.”
“I… I thought it was implied?” Sam sighs, a little embarrassed. “No, I’m not gonna see A.I.M. In fact, as soon as we get out I’ll tell the professor where the meeting place is. I’m not going miles near that place. You have my word."
Sharon clicks her tongue. “Oh, Sam you are lucky you are so very cute.”