Freedom
Barnes is gone when they get back. Sam is not surprised. He thinks maybe that Steve is not entirely surprised either.
But that doesn’t stop him from sliding down the wall at his back. The bags are on the floor, and Sam watches Steve let them go, so that his hands can cover his face. His shoulders shake and Sam thinks about how it’s only been a few years for him. A few years since the war. A few years since his best friend - or more - died.
“Hey, Steve -” there’s a sniff. “Can I sit right next to you?” A nod. “I know he’s gone, but he knows how to find you. Like, what’ll get your attention. Maybe he wasn’t ready for all this yet.” Maybe he knew that Steve would help him. “You gotta let him make the choice to come in. I’m not saying give up, okay, but you can’t force him.”
It takes a moment, but Steve eventually emerges from his hands, and looks over at Sam. He looks a wreck. He’s so fucking young. “How do you do it?” he asks. “How do you always know what’s right?”
Sam shrugs. “I don’t. But I do know skittish people and I have training. War does so much shit to you, and you can’t always see it. But with torture, with POWs, what they take is choice. I don’t think Barnes has had a choice since those assholes picked him up.”
Steve nods. “I know, and every time I think about it - all those files where they hurt him - I just - they all need to die.” Oh, and now that’s Barnes level scary. “They need to die, for what they did to him. I just want him back,” he says, utterly miserable.
Hope is a dangerous thing. But it’s what Steve needs. “I don’t think this is it, man. I think if he’s in there, he might come back. I don’t know how, I don’t know when. But something’s gonna happen.”
“What do we do now?”
“Keep watching. Wait for him. I think that’s the best thing you can do right now. Be ready to help him if he realizes he needs help. More importantly, we both need to rest. And I think you should call Natasha.”
Steve’s quiet on the drive back. Sam thinks he can see the man trying to cram all his shit into a box so he can shove it away. That’s not sustainable. Steve needs to cry and to rage and to express. But Sam’s only Sam, and he’s just as bone tired right now. Maybe he should ask for space, go home and shower or something. He’s already missed a shit ton of work. He’s gonna break too, if this goes too far. But Steve needs him, and it doesn’t seem like Steve’s got anyone else.
Sam thinks about the files and he thinks about the man they saw today. He knows all the horrible things that HYDRA did to that man, but being in the same space as him wasn’t the same. He’s still a predator, even if he’s been pulled apart and tortured, and Sam can’t forget the feeling of having the wings ripped off his back. It’s all one shitty tangle, and no one’s going to get out of this unscathed. He probably should have offered more help to Barnes. He shouldn’t have been so clearly unwelcoming. Should have taken the skittishness into account. But this is all so close to Sam himself. It’s hard to separate himself from it sometimes. And Sam, the man, not the counselor, was afraid in that moment. He’d reacted out of fear, and while he doesn’t think he screwed things up, he also thinks that he could have handled it better. Maybe. He thinks that it would have always ended with Barnes pulling a vanishing act.
They get home and Sam doesn’t ask for space, just goes to take a shower. He hears Steve talking on the phone when he gets out, and he assumes it’s probably Natasha. She knows about these sorts of things. She’s been a part of that world - Sam doesn’t really know the details, but he does know that she’s a spy and she’s got a Russian name. The world is only so big, after all. He thinks back to Steve saying that HYDRA needs to die and god, they’re really in it for the long run. Maybe they should think about doing something about HYDRA. It’d give Steve something to punch, something to hurt. But Sam doesn’t say that, because it’s just a whim. And it’s not particularly helpful.