Sam is tired of being the voice of reason of this dysfunctional unit. He’s tired of people crying on him and leaning on him and hugging him and touching him and he’s kind of tired of being in general, although that might be something unrelated to this shit-show.
He knows.
He knows.
This is who he is as a person. He wants to help people. He didn’t become a counselor to languish on his ass in an office all day. But there is a difference between wanting to be reliable and being someone people rely on. Someone people. Always. Rely On.
Some days, Sam sort of regrets signing up for the whole Avengers thing. He loves his boys. He would die for his boys. But the Avengers is something bigger than them, and he’s not sure he’d die for it. He reminds himself sometimes that he said he’d die for Uncle Sam too and then he sits back to appreciate the irony. Uncle Sam was doing a pretty shit job looking out for him right now.
Steve (not Cap, because he is an entirely different person) notices the signs. He’s an observant fucker, and Sam can sense him feeling his way through this one, bumping along, trying not to kick up too much of a fuss about it. It’s kind of sweet. Steve’s been doing little things for him, trying to figure out what’s gonna make it all better and struggling with the guilt that some of this is his fault. Sam doesn’t know how to tactfully tell Steve that yeah, some of it is his fault.
But anyways, he appreciates it when he staggers into the kitchen and finds a cup of coffee with an ‘I love you – SGR’ scrawled on a napkin in the morning. There is no ‘make it all better’ button, but Steve coming home with takeout from that Filipino place Sam likes on the other side of town, so Sam can eat right after getting home from work? That helps a little. Steve volunteering himself and Buck to find someone to help them handle all their taxes that year? That helps a little too.
Sam overhears a quiet, but firm conversation between Steve and Buck one day as he gets home from work a bit early. He doesn’t catch all of it, but he thinks he hears something that sounds a lot like:
“—can’t understand, probably can’t ever hope to understand, but it doesn’t matter. He does stuff for people all day, the least we can do is—”
“—get it. Nah, I do. Sorry for being a jerk. Wasn’t thinking ‘bout it like that—"
Sam smiles a little at how Steve’s Brooklyn accent comes out when he talks to Buck. He is also warmed to hear someone, for fucking once, doing what he does for other people all the damn time for him, even though he does feel a little embarrassed. He’s perfectly capable of looking after himself. He’s not glass. He’s no one’s responsibility. Anyways, he’s not sure what tipped off that conversation to begin with; he didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. Whatever it was, by the next day, he’s forgotten about it. He isn’t even thinking about it when Buck drops a heavy knit throw in his lap and then sits down seriously across from him.
Buck doesn’t like confrontation. He has issues with authority. He gets aggressive and scared. He doesn’t argue with Sam or Steve outside the normal banter. Sam waits with raised eyebrows; he wraps the blanket around himself because apparently this is an important gesture.
“Steve says--” Buck starts, before stuttering along, “Steve says that you aren’t feeling great. He, um. He said he didn’t know if it was a racism thing or a stressed thing or a tired thing, but um, that, uh, he thinks that I should talk to you about uh, like, what kinds of things I can do to make you feel better when you’re feeling, uh, not great.” Buck lifted his head to look into Sam’s eyes.
Sam was taken aback a bit. At the tip of his tongue was “don’t worry about it, I’m fine,” but then he remembered that, yeah, no, actually he deserved this.
So he told him about how people at work cried on him all day and how he was always going from one crisis to another and how it seemed like he couldn’t be any Avenger’s friend because it was like he had to be their goddamn therapist too and that tension was aggravating as shit. The he told him how it felt nice to find Steve’s little notes in the morning and how it felt good to just come home to food on the table and a movie or a workout at the gym and how those things reminded him that he existed outside his work and the Avengers. He was edging towards embarrassed at how much he told him, but even though Buck ducked his head for most of that conversation, he hummed and nodded and peeked up to meet Sam’s eyes to encourage him to keep going when he paused.
When he was quiet for a while, trying to think of anything else he wanted to get off his chest, Buck looked up and made longer eye contact with him. He slowly stood up from the coffee table he’d perched himself on and sat down cross-legged on the much more comfortable couch facing Sam.
“Steve said he didn’t always understand,” He said. “And I’m not gonna lie, I can’t relate too much to what’s happening to you either. I do know what it is to have people rely on you all damn day and all damn night with no breaks, though. That was how it felt with the Howlies; I can remember that much.”
He paused.
“And I know Steve and I aren’t the easiest people to be with. I mean, we got you into this mess and it has been an actual shit-show. And I’m really, really sorry about that. But, if there is anything you ever want or need you can tell me and I’ll try to make it happen. I mean, I don’t know how to deal with the counseling thing and I’m probably not the best person for any PTSD thing, but like, I’m a fast learner. And I’m really good at terrifying the shit out of people. And I’m pretty good at cuddling. And I’m not the worst at driving--”
“JB if you ever try to put me in a car with you in the driver’s seat, so help me god—”
Buck was watching him with a bit of a smile at the corners of his lips; trying to make Sam feel better.
“Okay, maybe I am the worst at driving, but I’m really good nail polish?”
Sam considered this. It was not untrue. It didn’t make everything better and it sure as hell didn’t put a dent in the whole team caretaker or the ‘sometimes I want to stop existing’ thing. But it was a step in the right direction and boy did they have a lot of work to do.
“Alright, you’ll do for now,” He said.