I feel like this sums up Steve and Sam’s relationship beautifully. Like, they live to give each other shit. It is their joie d’vive or however you spell it. They cannot let shit drop. Steve will be on-your-lefting Sam until they are both dead and buried. Sam will be harassing Steve about making bad choices, basically always, for just as long.
And this? This is something that must be kept secret because a friend like this you can trust with your deepest darkest wounds. This is a friend who will hunt down your lost, broken other half across the world with you. They will go to war with you. They will take a bullet for you and they know you will do the same for them.
But shit, man, when you trip over your own feet, and fall down the stairs? This is the friend who will film it, put it on Youtube, and email it to everyone you know. And for that you will love them forever.
I’ve never thought about Tony Stark being an artist before. But I mean, it would make sense. I mean, he is an artist, in the way he’s able to design his projects, articulate his ideas in the living world as an engineer. But he’s gotta have an EXTREMELY good eye for the human body and the way things look and move because of this. So he’d be a DAMN good artist.
Imagine him and Steve exchanging art tips, holy shit
imagine his political and satire cartoons holy fuck
okay but Tony growing up looking at his fathers drafts, but also looking at the pictures Steve drew for Howard and Peggy. Listening to stories about Rogers’ gift with a pencil. Sitting at Peggy’s knee as she talks about when she ran across Steve during the USO tour, right before he got into the fight, and how beneath the sketch of a landscape, Steve had drawn this little monkey, wearing his costume, balancing on a unicycle with a little, a little parasol in its hand. That’s how Steve saw himself, and then he changed it. He was a brilliant man, Tony…
And then Tony meets him, and never sees Steve draw. Just fighting, fighting, fighting, stepping in line with SHIELD and at first, Tony doesn’t get it. He doesn’t understand how anyone could look at Steve and see an artist. He’s just a soldier.
And then he meets Sam, and they start chatting–somehow the topic of Sam’s PTSD comes up which leads to Tony talking about his own struggle with his, right now. What he’s doing, what he’s taking for it, what a great support Pepper has been, and Sam is genuinely proud of Tony and Tony doesn’t know what to fucking do with that???? and then Sam’s like “I wish I could get Steve to where you are. I know I’m not supposed to be his therapist or his sponsor, but. I worry about the guy. Y’know when I met him, I asked him if there’s anything that even makes him happy, and that fucker still hasn’t given me a straight answer. He’s lost in his work, down the rabbit hole, I just wish I knew how to…give him a nudge in the right direction.”
Tony’s quiet for a long moment, long enough that Sam starts to shake his head, a dismissal on his lips, but then Tony holds up a finger and says, “Does he still draw?”
Sam shrugs. “I don’t think so–did he used to?”
“Yeah,” Tony says. “Yeah, I think so. I used to hear stories about–Y’know what. Y’know what, tomorrow–do you know Bob Ross?”
Sam is trying not to smile. “Do I know Bob Ross.”
“He’s great, right? He’s mellow and folksy, has that ASMR thing going for him. I bet you, I bet you, we get Steve in the same room as one of his shows, something will happen. The man makes me want to paint and I don’t paint. I’m terrible at painting. Especially landscapes.”
Now Sam is smiling. And laughing. “Okay. Okay, just tell me where Bob Ross’ playin, and I’ll bring the big guy his way.”
What I like is how Sam already knows all the security arrangements for the last remaining EXO-7 off the top of his head, which implies Sam either a) has seriously considered making off with it before or b) ALMOST MANAGED IT SINGLEHANDEDLY ONCE AND THEY HAD TO UP SECURITY.
I like your style OP.
If I had wings and someone took them, I would do literally everything in my power to get them back. WINGS, MAN. Fucking WINGS!
So I’ve recently written a lot of posts that talk about James Rhodes, aka War Machine, aka the only person in the world who put up with Tony Stark for decades. I thought it might be useful if I link them all in one place. So….
you know, when Steve introduces himself in TWS, Sam laughs and says “I’d put that together.” which makes sense because no normal human can run like that.
but like WHEN did he put it together? how many laps did it take before it dawned on him? at what point did Sam Wilson suddenly realize that he was being TROLLED BY CAPTAIN AMERICA
I SUDDENLY VERY MUCH NEED TO KNOW THIS.
No seriously, don’t sit there and go “Moran you’re so cute,” talk to me about Sam, who’s tired because…well, he works at the VA, with people like him, people who’ve seen the worst humanity has to offer, who’ve lost friends so close they were more than family, whose beds are too hard and who sometimes struggle to see the light, maybe even some people who, like him, are torn between blessed relief at being away from the fight and the deep thrum of the march in their souls. And about how Sam’s tired, physically tired because he can’t sleep, mentally weary from his work, which is rewarding sometimes but not often, emotionally exhausted because some part of him kind of misses it, misses the fight, so Sam runs, and maybe that seems backwards but he used to be able to fly and that’s something he’s not really allowed to tell people (which sucks, by the way, national security his fine black ass) and running is almost like flight. Except it’s not, at all.
Talk to me about how Sam’s been running the same damn laps every morning since he got home and he would actually almost be okay with some jackass starting shit on the street because it would be something to do. Talk to me about how Sam ran at a reasonable hour at first (military man or not, he doesn’t get along with mornings) but there were so many people, mothers jogging with strollers, tourists wandering and just getting in the way, bicycles everywhere, and he likes people fine, sure, he’s one charming son of a bitch if he does say so himself (he doesn’t actually, because his mama would still whup his ass if she heard him), but not when they’re interfering with his run. And about how Sam starts inching his run earlier and earlier until he’s seeing the damn sunrise again, but he’s running with one or two other folks who give him a businesslike nod and a brisk warning so they don’t collide and he likes that a lot better because no one should really be expected to be social that early in the morning.
Talk to me about how one morning this random guy with blond hair and a jaw like a goddamn Adonis and shoulders so wide you could put the whole Lincoln memorial on top of them starts running at an ungodly hour with the scant few of them who are out by then, and he runs in this bizarrely delicate way that should be exhausting but clearly isn’t because this guy is fucking booking it like the proverbial bat out of hell. Talk to me about how at first Sam’s just blown away, too blown away to really even think about it as this random blond god blazes past him again and again (he almost doesn’t mind at first because it’s an absolute pleasure to watch the man leave him in the dust–Sam’s a good looking guy, and he knows it, but the guy’s ass is something else). And about how at first it gets to be this habit: go for run, get whipped by random blond dude, politely ogle blond dude’s ass as he runs past, leave with an appreciation for the good things in life and a healthily lowered ego. About how Sam gets to almost be weird non-friends-but-kind-of-work-out-buddies with Random Blond Guy over a week or so, who always dodges politely rather than giving a warning, just like he is with the other handful of runners at this hour.
Talk to me about how one day the blond guy blows past Sam with a brisk “On your left” and Sam almost stumbles because, first of all, they don’t talk, that’s not a thing, and second of all, that motherfucker’s not even out of breath. Talk to me about how that kind of pisses Sam off in a way that the simple running didn’t, and suddenly he’s pushing himself a little more, a little harder and the guy comes past again with another “on your left” and they finish the run like that but this time, this time Sam’s been paying more attention and the guy has been doing something ridiculous like thirty miles an hour plus (it’s not like he actually clocked him, okay, he’s guessing here) and wow, that’s just inhuman, flat out impossible. Talk to me about how Sam goes back out to run the next day and it happens again and this time Sam’s paying even more attention and–son of a bitch that’s goddamn Captain America trolling him like a pro. Sam almost has a heart attack on the spot, he actually almost does, he stumbles and feels his heartrate hitch and everything, but he stays on his feet possibly through sheer ego because Captain fucking America might lap him a million times every morning, but he’s sure as shit not going to fall into the Reflecting Pool because of the shock, no sir, that’s just too humiliating to consider.
And the next day Random Blond Captain America comes and talks to Sam after their run and the fucker’s got jokes, too.
It literally doesn’t even surprise Sam when he agrees to go risk his neck to help the bastard. Fuck this civilian life bit, he’s got priorities.
