posting an old rhodeysam meta for @redwingsupportgroup in re to my latest ask. wrote this a few years ago but i’ve never seen anyone talk about it so here!!
listening to sam talking to steve about losing riley drew parallels for me about rhodey’s accident in civil war.
sam tells steve that he and riley were pararescue, meaning both of them had falcon suits and took on falcon’s duties during their tours. when he tells steve that someone shot riley out of the sky, he claims “there was nothing i could do about it. it’s like i was up there just to watch.” the amount of pain sam would’ve harvested due to losing riley and not being able to do anything about it is momentous. he would’ve sat on that shit for years, though about it for days on end. losing his best friend because he wasn’t able to save him? sam, a pararescue, not being able to do the one thing he was put in the field to do; rescue. it would tear him up completely.
marvel do a good job of ignoring sam’s possible ptsd from the war/losing riley other than mentioning his work in a va support group briefly in captain america: the winter soldier. other than that, correct me if i’m wrong, we don’t really see much of it. sam willingly joins the avengers because “captain america needs my help”, but the idea of his ptsd resurfacing is completely untouched. it’s not normal— sam wouldn’t have been able to go back into it so easily and lightly like he did. there would be moments off camera where his ptsd plays on him, where does missions like in tws/iw and these thoughts about his tours come back to him. he suffers. he does.
and rhodey’s accident in civil war would be one of them. that beam from vision was meant for sam, not rhodey. vision meant to hit him, not rhodey, yet rhodey took the fall because sam’s survival instinct kicked in. as rhodey falls from the sky and sam flies to try and save him, in his mind— it’s losing riley all over again. of course this close of a parallel would trigger sam’s ptsd and the reoccurring event would play on his mind. he tries so desperately to save rhodey as he falls because he couldn’t save riley when he fell. sam wasn’t prepared to lose another person he called a friend, despite the stupid feud in civil war, and it hit him hard.
ultimately when rhodey is injured, the civil war is stopped immediately, and sam even goes to check that he’s okay. if the writers remotely cared about him... they’d have let him stay with tony to see if he was okay. because it meant something to sam in that moment of panic. it meant something because it hit hard with him that yet someone else was falling from the sky and he couldn’t do anything to save him. the line “it’s like i was up there just to watch” comes into play so poignantly and perfectly once again— because ultimately? sam does watch riley fall to his death. he watches rhodey fall to paralysation. he can’t do anything about either of the situations.
and this entire situation playing out once again for sam is probably one of the most painful parallels marvel has indirectly pulled. yet sam continues to fight. he continues on to infinity war, his friendship with rhodey mends itself because it never was sam’s fault in the first place. sam and rhodey could easily have one of the best friendships in the mcu but aren’t given the screentime or the time of day by the writers. there’s unspoken quips from the writers in lines like “the hotels weren’t exactly five star”, the shared look between sam and rhodey in infinity war. they could be THAT duo, rid of toxic masculinity and full of care and love for one another. but marvel stay silent
