[ see that's the thing sam is having the hardest time with. because he gets it. he can sympathize. he's not arrogant or full of himself or traumatized enough to try and act like he fully understands where bucky is coming from. there are some things that you will never, truly, be able to experience. and you shouldn't want to. bucky has gone through hell and back - for steve, for himself, for the sake of survival - and on the nights where sam thinks back on those files, on the information he learned, the things that bucky was forced to do - it gives him nightmares. or maybe not nightmares, but god. something close enough.
but sam can, to a point, understand. bucky is a soldier back from war to find that everything he had left behind, every piece of home and family and life, was gone. he left, he was changed, and what he came back to was as foreign as the world he'd been in before. he latched onto the most familiar thing he had, something that couldn't make a single decision that left him behind, and he latched. sam knows what that feels like. knows the desperation in putting your hope and your life and your footing in something, because a thing can't let you down. you can't let a thing down. not really. for sam, in some ways, it was the boat he left at home. it was the idea of having a home to go back to. which - in all honesty - isn't any better, considering how that boat and that life and that home might be slipping through his fingers even now.
he has to remind himself, though. one step at a time. one fight. make your decision and move on. he made his decision, where it concerned the shield. he had put it away somewhere he thought was safe and he told the rest of the country to find new heroes. to move on. (maybe because he knew he was having trouble doing it himself).
it didn't work, obviously. and sam blames himself for that. putting his faith that the government would keep their promise. putting his faith in the people giving orders, when he knew better. but that was a weighty kind of guilt he would have to process later. when they were's fighting super soldiers. when they weren't facing a terrorist group that threatened to take down all that they - that steve - had fought to keep together.
and for the record - sam is angry, too. angry when he goes to sleep. angry when he wakes up. angry, so angry, but anger has never served him like action did. so he swallows it and uses it to propel him forward. ]
Because I'm a good communicator, obviously. [ sam says it with a kind of casual haughtiness. there is a silent implication of maybe you should try it sometime that sam doesn't bother to voice.
he moves to find some kind of bowl, setting out different parts of the takeout boxes into different dishes, working them into a kind of casserole-esque plate, obviously comfortable enough with his work not to keep force conversation with bucky if he doesn't want to chitchat. ]
no subject
but sam can, to a point, understand. bucky is a soldier back from war to find that everything he had left behind, every piece of home and family and life, was gone. he left, he was changed, and what he came back to was as foreign as the world he'd been in before. he latched onto the most familiar thing he had, something that couldn't make a single decision that left him behind, and he latched. sam knows what that feels like. knows the desperation in putting your hope and your life and your footing in something, because a thing can't let you down. you can't let a thing down. not really. for sam, in some ways, it was the boat he left at home. it was the idea of having a home to go back to. which - in all honesty - isn't any better, considering how that boat and that life and that home might be slipping through his fingers even now.
he has to remind himself, though. one step at a time. one fight. make your decision and move on. he made his decision, where it concerned the shield. he had put it away somewhere he thought was safe and he told the rest of the country to find new heroes. to move on. (maybe because he knew he was having trouble doing it himself).
it didn't work, obviously. and sam blames himself for that. putting his faith that the government would keep their promise. putting his faith in the people giving orders, when he knew better. but that was a weighty kind of guilt he would have to process later. when they were's fighting super soldiers. when they weren't facing a terrorist group that threatened to take down all that they - that steve - had fought to keep together.
and for the record - sam is angry, too. angry when he goes to sleep. angry when he wakes up. angry, so angry, but anger has never served him like action did. so he swallows it and uses it to propel him forward. ]
Because I'm a good communicator, obviously. [ sam says it with a kind of casual haughtiness. there is a silent implication of maybe you should try it sometime that sam doesn't bother to voice.
he moves to find some kind of bowl, setting out different parts of the takeout boxes into different dishes, working them into a kind of casserole-esque plate, obviously comfortable enough with his work not to keep force conversation with bucky if he doesn't want to chitchat. ]