#falconcap

“Alright,” you smiled up at Sam slowing to a stop on a ridge. Your herd of hearty western cattle stood below, dark specks still as stone in the sea of pale green and soft brown winter prairie.

Sam took a deep sigh and let it out in a quick puff through pursed lips. “So this is the job, huh?”

“Not so bad, right?”

“Definitely seen worse.” He grinned as he said it, turning to you in the bright mid-day sun.

That damn smile again. It had the heat creeping up your cheeks. You turned your head, pretending to check a strap on your saddle to hide it.

You heard his laugh, more of a soft chuckle. Apparently, you weren’t very discrete after all. It seemed, though, that Sam enjoyed this little game even more than you did. The little glances, the smiles, moving a little closer every now and again. You’d bet the barn he was doing it on purpose: making you squirm like that.

“You’re calling the shots, I take it?”

He nodded, looking over the valley as the others circled the area, pushing the cattle into a tighter herd at your staff’s encouragement.

“Well, before the real work begins…”

Sam raised his eyebrows with a slow grin as you pulled a bottle of whiskey out of your saddlebag.

“Don’t judge me,” you defended. “I know I’ve earned it. Getting you comfortable in a saddle, city-Sam.”

He laughed, rich and sweet. The sound tangled in your ears with the creaking of leather as you leaned in your saddle to pass the bottle. You and your horse moved as one most of the time and she took it as a cue to side-step.

The movement pushed your hand into Sam’s and god, just that simple brush of skin was enough to light a fire somewhere deep in the center of your spine. The flames licked up your neck while the smile on your face froze at the unexpected contact and turned to something soft, nervous and brimming with anticipation.

You felt Sam’s eyes skim over your face, deep and burning like a canyon at sunset. The air clung to your skin, like even it dared not move.

The sharp pop of a whip down below finally cracked through the moment and it was gone as unexpectedly as it had come.

Sam looked alarmed, eyes darting around the perimeter of the clearing, while yours simply scanned the loose corner of the herd where one of the ranch hands was urging an eager bull back into the fold.

“It’s just a whip, Sam.” Your voice was soft and he was glad.

“I thought it was…” he shook his head, half a smile on his lips, and half a frown in his eyes. “It sounded like a handgun.”

“Not that kind of job.” You tipped the bottle toward him again, a small sympathetic smile on your lips. While gunfire was far from a rarity here, it didn’t carry the same meaning it did for Sam. It didn’t mean a fight or a mission. It was a part of life for you both, but yours, you realized, was far more sedate thanks to Sam and the others riding out over your land that day.

This time he took the bottle and scowled at the label.

“Thought I was calling the shots.”

You laughed, reaching into your pocket for a tiny flask. “Fine. You want the good stuff; you gotta earn it out there.”

“Alright, let’s do this.” The words were a damp growl after the stiff sip of locally distilled bourbon.

Together you talked through the positions and the skills of his teammates.

“I’d set your best rider behind, someone to chase down stragglers—“

“Clint,” Sam decided without hesitation. “He’s got a good eye. He’ll take the high ground.”

“Good,” you nodded your agreement.

The others fell into positions easily, and you began driving the cattle up toward fresh pasture. With a signal from Sam, Bruce opened the hatch of the pick-up truck and 3 speckled cattle dogs lept out, barking and racing. They would do the leg-work, circling the herd and keeping a tight migration up to the cooler edge of the peaks, just breaking with green spring grass.

Sam ranged up and down the side of the group, watching, calling orders, drawing the group and the job into a cohesive unit. They moved as one, cutting across the fields like the shadow of a cloud.

Soon enough the team settled into the work, into their roles and their familiarity with each other. Sam was a natural leader and there was comfort in that. It allowed the others the freedom to do what they needed to do. He made it easy and it wasn’t long before they’d begun shouting jabs at each other.

“Rhodes that calf’s gonna make a run for it!” Bruce called over the roar of the diesel engine in which he rode. He pointed over the cab of the truck. “Ah it’s too late,” he laughed, waving a dismissive hand through the air as James tried to encourage his horse into a faster pace to head off the little cow. “It’s too late, man.”

Clint, slightly bored bringing up the rear on his own, had stopped to fashion himself a slingshot and had taken to firing pebbles at the back of Bucky’s neck. Wanda couldn’t stop giggling at the irritation rising pink in his cheeks, along with a smirk and a shake of his head. Clint knew he was going to wake up with his boots full of manure or his clothes in the creek. Worth the risk, he’d decided.

“That your cousin?” Bucky called, looking over his shoulder at Sam with a wicked grin. He pointed a glimmering metal hand up into the sky at the large bird circling the top of the hill.

“Hilarious,” Sam rolled his eyes. You, however, pulled the binoculars hanging at your chest up to your eyes.

“Sorry, soldier,” you hollered with a wink toward Sam, “Falcons stick to the canyon around here. That’s a Cooper’s Hawk.”

“Clint, that’s you!” Wanda shouted happily; turning almost completely around, hand on the back of her saddle.

Just as Clint looked over, the raptor soared for only a moment longer before pitching downward. It dove for a prairie dog at a shocking pace. Unsuccessful.

“Faceplant out of a tree,” Rhodes chuckled. “Yeah, that’s a Clint move.”

The ribbing continued until you’d urged the cattle up the hills under the slender, bone-white trunks of an aspen grove. Green shimmering leaves had just begun to sprout and the river bubbled its soft laugh nearby. It was a perfect spot to set up camp for the night. The Avengers had done well, but unused to full days riding; they’d need to find their sea-legs again.

“Oh damn,” Sam complained, half groan, half sigh. He waddled toward the warmth of the fire. “Now I know why everybody in those old westerns walked like they just got their asses beat. Literally.”

You laughed, hard. “You a little saddle sore?”

“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?” Bucky interjected, handing over a sleeve of re-hydrated rice and beef. Dinner on the trail.

“I don’t have the energy to explain how the birds and the bees work right now, Bucky. Use your imagination.”

You enjoyed Sam’s company a lot. You also really enjoyed the way he interacted with each of his team members. He was a chameleon. He seemed to sense what everyone needed and adapt accordingly. Bucky needed to not be handled with kid gloves, to be treated normally. Their unending banter was as much a defining feature of their friendship, as it was a credit to Sam’s perceptiveness and ability to meet his friends where they needed it.

A natural leader even when he wasn’t trying.

The full days ride in the long summer sun had thoroughly worn out your guests and your staff alike. They had retired into the safety of their tents, tucked into warm synthetic down sleeping bags rolled out over top of the line sleeping pads.

You, however, were never one for tents. This land was your home and you felt no need to hide from it.

When you heard the soft shuffle of feet on the packed grass and dirt, you turned your head from its place on your bent forearm.

“Mind if I join you?” Sam asked quietly, hovering at the edge of the fading firelight.

“Is everything alright with your sleeping arrangements?” you asked, pushing up onto your elbows and preparing to accommodate your guest. This was a business, after all. “Can I get you somethi—“

“No! No.” He was quick to dispel your worries. “You’ve been—Everything’s great.”

You nodded and waited, stretching back out onto your deep green wool blanket. It had been in your family for generations, had spread under these stars for countless nights.

“I just uh,” he paused, scratching the back of his neck and stepping closer. “I did two tours, and then all this. The Avengers thing.  You get used to sleeping with your head on a rock and it’s hard to go back. Sometimes you start to think you shouldn’t get too comfortable, you know?”

You chewed on the inside of your lip and nodded. You didn’t know. His experience was unique, certainly a world away from your own. But a life spent out here, with just the sound of the wind in the grass and the crash of thunder off the mountains, you’d become a good listener.

“Well,” you answered slowly, patting the clay-hardened earth beside you. “There are plenty of rocks around here.”

He grinned. It was a new one for you, and it warmed you from the inside out. Just a simple tip of his lips to one side, a brightening of the glint in his eyes and you were closing your own, memorizing it and willing yourself to breathe.

He settled himself next to you, mimicking your posture and hooking a thickly chiseled arm behind his head. The heat of his skin burned warmer than the fire as his free arm pressed against yours from shoulder to fingertip. Well your fingertips, anyway.

“What are you doin’ out here?” he asked, turning up onto his side to fix you with a steady gaze.

It took you a moment to figure out how words worked again.

“I uh,” You shrugged. “I like it.”

His laugh was full and soft at the same time. You continued to marvel at the depth of mirth that spilled out of this man. He was a well of warmth and kindness, like that old familiar blanket that you always want to wrap around your shoulders and fall asleep under, safe and content.

“You pretty much do exactly what you want, don’t you?” he asked, smile pulling his full lips wide and tight. His eyes, though, were serious, slightly narrowed while he studied you in the dying firelight.

“Pretty much,” you chuckled, repeating his words back, hardly able to hold a conversation under that look.

Your entire body was drawn to it. You turned onto your side to face him full on, curling your knees to steady yourself. It was all in the eyes for you. God you could watch them all day, but here, in the firelight, it was like staring at a beach just after sunset: warm and dark and shimmering with something golden. He was like the familiar comfort of soft worn leather, and he smelled of it after a day’s ride. What you wouldn’t give to have his arms around you.

“You know you have that power now too, right?” you asked quietly. “You’re giving the orders now, Captain.” You smiled because it wasn’t really your place. Your job here was to help people see their own potential, find their role among their group. Be it a family, a business, or, in the oddest of cases, the Avengers. But lying side by side under the stars wasn’t exactly in the list of services either. This wasn’t business, this was personal.

“I know.” Sam took in a slow deep breath and let it out between pursed lips. “Doesn’t quite feel like it yet.”

“You know, this place was supposed to go to my older brother?” you asked. It was rhetorical of course, so Sam just listened, watching the bittersweet smile tug over your lips. “That’s how it goes out here. Traditions have a way of stickin’. Anyway. He went to the stock show in the city. Got one look at what could’ve been and knew that was what he wanted. He never looked back.”

Sam’s large hand smoothed over your arm before it came to rest curling through your fingers. “That must have been challenging.”

You shrugged. “Not everybody understands it. His decision,” you explained. “But it was his to make. And now this is mine. And I don’t carry his or anyone else’s decisions around on my back.”

You squeezed his hand when he nodded, letting his eyes fall.

“And that shield?” you urged. “That’s yours.”

“You’re damn right it is,” Sam grinned, curling your joined hands up to his chest. Your heart stuttered with the warmth and the intimacy of the act. It was like he’d pulled you closer body and soul. You barely knew him but you were hooked.

“So when you get home,” You ducked your head to kiss his knuckles and curl closer. “…you tell that Mission Coordinator of yours that as great this week has been, your team is never getting on horseback again!”

His laughter was a welcome sound, and a soft shudder in your own rib-cage.

Two weeks later, the team had been training together like a well-oiled machine at the compound and Maria couldn’t be more proud of herself for her obscure choice of team building exercise.

Like every other morning that summer, after a long run in the mid-summer heat, the east-coast humidity stuck to Sam like a second skin. He tugged at the collar of his shirt, fanning himself lightly with it as he jogged up the steps to his townhome.

He frowned down at the little package on the stoop, and picked it up. He hadn’t been expecting anything, but when he saw flying K brand stamped in heavy black ink over the seam, he grinned and took a seat right there in the sun.

Inside the box he found a small bottle of whiskey from a distillery nestled into the same valley as your ranch. He’d bet his wings it was the same as had been in your little pocket flask, and he laughed at the memory. The note tied to the neck of the bottle read:

“A shot for the guy calling all the shots. Give ‘em hell, Cap.”