Work Text:
Sam could barely stand after spending six hours being bumped around in the back of a pickup over what could only generously be called roads followed by a thirteen hour flight through every pocket of turbulence currently in existence. He was of the opinion that Natasha had taken his joke about women drivers unnecessarily personally, though he’d never be dumb enough to make it worse by saying that out loud. It wouldn’t have been so bad if they’d found any leads on Bucky, but the trip to Outer Mongolia had turned up jack shit. Now Sam just wanted a bed. Hell, all he really wanted was a flat surface that wasn’t moving. Even the floor of the small hangar where Natasha had just landed the jet was looking pretty good, considering this wasn’t their usual landing site; during the mission, they’d gotten a coded message from Fury that the airfield they used could be compromised. He was about to ask if he could have the spot under the long table when Steve said, “We need to eat. I’m starving.”
“I’m not cooking,” Natasha griped, shoving past both of them.
“Fine with me. I was getting kinda sick of Black Widow barbeque,” Sam muttered under his breath, though not quietly enough if the dirty look he got was any indication. They’d spent much of the last week living on protein bars and a deer she had managed to shoot (with a handgun, as if that was even a thing a person could freaking do) and cooked over an open fire after a botched resupply.
Steve walked over and pulled her into a hug from behind, nuzzling into her neck. She dragged out the moment with some angry mumbling before turning to him for a surprisingly gentle kiss. Sam let out his breath and shook his head. “You two and your fake fights.”
Natasha was clearly more tired than she was letting on because she didn’t reply with a snarky comment about her and Steve’s active sex life. “Let’s just eat and get some sleep.” She disappeared through a door while Steve showed Sam a secure storage locker for his wingpack and weapons.
It wasn’t until they left the hangar for shockingly posh living space that Sam realized that they hadn’t landed at an airfield or even a base. Manhattan stretched away through the plate glass windows across the room, all winking lights and skyscrapers. “Uhhh…”
“Welcome to Avengers’ Tower,” Steve said simply as he walked toward the kitchen, where Natasha was already leaning against the counter, having a bowl of cereal and a beer.
Sam was too distracted to go right for the food as he’d intended. “You seriously just landed a jet in a hangar at the top of a building?”
“S’mostly autopilot,” she replied through a mouthful of Frosted Flakes. “JARVIS helps.”
“Who?”
Sam jumped as a voice said out of nowhere, “Good evening, Mr. Wilson.”
“What in the…”
Steve gave him an amused look. “JARVIS, sounds like you already know Sam, but Sam…” he paused to wave his hand around vaguely, “this is JARVIS. He’s like Stark’s robot butler and you just talk to him.”
The voice sounded like it spoke from all around them, “Captain Rogers, as I have explained on countless occasions, I am not a robot but an artificial intelligence attached to…”
“Right, JARVIS. You’re made of magic technology. Anyway, JARVIS is very helpful and always available around here.”
“Thank you, Captain.”
Sam looked around as the voice disappeared, expecting another interruption at any second, but Steve was already jamming some kind of frozen dinner into the microwave. “Dude, you gotta warn a brother before you spring that on him!”
“Sorry.”
“JARVIS is one of the technological marvels that Steve has fully adapted to,” Natasha volunteered, getting herself another beer and offering Sam one. He accepted and took a long draught from the bottle as the microwave stopped with a series of beeps. “In fact, I think JARVIS may be his favorite thing about the 21st century after Hungry Man dinners.”
“I wouldn’t go that far…” Steve said, pausing to wrap his arm around her waist and kiss her cheek before moving to get his fried chicken and mixed vegetables from the microwave.
Sam rolled his eyes. He’d seen enough of their PDAs in the past eight months since agreeing on the Buck Hunt (Natasha had suggested ‘Operation: Spring Thaw’ while he had pushed ‘Up All Night to Get Bucky;’ they’d agreed on the mutually entertaining Nintendo reference and shared their jerk dog impressions while Steve looked on, bewildered). “Yeah, yeah, lovebirds. Got another one of those dinners in the freezer?”
Ten minutes later, Natasha had left to take a shower and Sam was following Steve through the halls of what looked like a five-star hotel. “This is seriously where you live?”
“What? No, you’ve been to our place in DC.”
Steve and Natasha had moved to a new secure apartment together after the SHIELD file dump and Sam had spent many nights planning missions and next moves from their living room. It was pretty nice, but it looked like a flophouse compared to this place. “Yeah, but I didn’t realize you two were slumming it there and had a New York penthouse available.”
“Well, it’s not technically the penthouse.” Steve opened the door to a large suite in which the lights came on as they moved through. “But it’s nicer than most places I’ve lived, so I can’t complain. Tony can be a little much, but he’s not always around.”
“Most places?” Sam glanced around the master bedroom and king-sized bed. “So…”
For some reason, Steve was clearing out a couple dresser drawers and had his arms full of clothes. “Anyway, you can ask JARVIS if you need anything. He can connect you to us or whatever.”
“I really just wanna wash up and collapse in that big old bed right now.”
“Copy that. I think there’s some clean stuff in the bottom drawers if you don’t have clean clothes to wear.” Steve nudged him with an elbow. “Thanks for everything, Sam.”
“Never a problem, Cap.”
Sam found a t-shirt and pajama pants in one of the drawers Steve hadn’t cleaned out and fell asleep almost as soon as he’d hit the mattress.
It was quiet in the Tower this morning. Too quiet. Tony spun on his heel, hands raised in a potentially effective karate defense, to meet a threat that didn’t materialize. He said aloud, “Well, I guess life isn’t a movie. JARVIS, what’s on the schedule for the day?”
“Without Ms. Potts to provide you with a schedule of activities, you appear to be fairly free, sir.”
“Excellent.” Tony rubbed his hands together gleefully. “I’m thinking explosions followed by carefully worded press releases about the importance of experimentation to the advancement of science and blah blah blah.”
“A normal Wednesday, then, sir. Shall I inform Legal to prepare for calls from NYPD?”
“Whatever you usually do, J.”
Tony was about to make his way to the lab when JARVIS added, “I feel I should inform you that Captain Rogers and Agent Romanoff arrived late last night.”
“Did they now?” A fun activity rose to the forefront of Tony’s mind. “And, pray tell, is the good Captain’s quarters currently occupied?”
“Yes, sir, but…”
“Bump Wednesday explosions to the afternoon. And do the elevator. Don’t make me press the button.” Moments later, he was carefully depressing the handle on Rogers’ foolishly unlocked door. He moved quietly through the suite and grabbed the lump under the covers in the bedroom without a second thought. “Capsicle!”
“Dude!” The voice was definitely not Steve Rogers’.
Tony almost balked when the man under the blankets rolled over to face him. “Wow, Steve. That…that is quite the tan you’ve gotten?”
“Real cute, asshole.” The man rubbed his eyes and yawned. “What time is it?”
Tony did his best not to overreact. “Don’t know if we’ve met, but I’m both Tony Stark and Iron Man. The superhero owner of this building, in case you’re too tired to recognize me.”
“Yeah, promise I’ll be impressed after a few more hours of sleep.”
Tony fought his first instinct to argue; this guy hadn’t just wandered into the Tower and broken in for a nap, after all. “Well, far be it from be to interrupt a stranger’s beauty sleep, but…who the hell are you?”
“Sam Wilson. I got here with Steve and Natasha last night.”
“Wilson? Wilson. Oh, Wilson.” He frowned with the recognition. “Falcon, right? All you do is fly, huh? No repulsors, no missiles, no guns. Just the wings?”
“I got guns. There some reason you’re still here, man?”
“I was just looking for Spangles.” He was thrown off by the lack of acknowledgment, but he was willing to let it slide for the moment. “Is he in the shower or something?”
“How should I know? He just showed me the guest room and disappeared. Why don’t you wake him up and bug him?”
Tony found himself confounded. “Guest room?”
“Yeah. He brought me here and told me I could ask your JARVIS guy if I needed something or whatever, then he went to his and Nat’s room.”
“His and Natalie’s…”
“Why do you keep repeating what I’m saying? Aren’t you supposed to be a genius or something? Go bother them, man.”
“I will do that,” Tony replied as he backed out of the room. He paused in the hallway after he closed the outer door. Why would this Wilson guy think Steve and Natasha had a suite that belonged to them? He was probably just tired. And Steve was a gentleman who wanted to give his new buddy some privacy so he gave up his own room and was planning to sleep on a sofa in the living area until Natasha told him to sleep on her couch and… Yeah, it was some dumb Captain America chivalry thing.
Feeling more confident about the situation, Tony called out, “JARVIS, where is Captain Rogers?”
“He is currently in Agent Romanoff’s quarters.”
“And is there some reason you couldn’t have shared this information before?”
“You didn’t ask, sir.”
Tony found it hard to belittle the polite snark in the statement. It was his program, after all. Natasha’s door was actually locked, no surprise, but JARVIS opened it without further commentary. There was no one sleeping on the couch in the living room. Huh. That was…that couldn’t…had Steve gone somewhere in the minute it had taken him to come upstairs?
He tentatively pushed the bedroom door open. There was a flash and he ducked as the wood just over his head exploded in time with the subsequent bang. “Jesus Christ! You’re paying for that, Natalie!”
“It’s my room, Stark. Maybe I like bullet holes in my doorframes.”
“Well I’ve got damn oak splinters in my hair and…” he trailed off as the light beside the bed came on. “Uhhh…”
“Something you need, Tony?” Steve, shirtless and sleep tousled, gazed at him calmly as Natasha tucked her gun under her pillow and rolled over to go back to sleep.
“What…why…you’re in Natalie’s bed!”
“We had a long trip and we’d like to get caught up on sleep, so can we move along if you’re just here to state the obvious?”
“You think this is obvious?”
“Tony…”
“Okay. Don’t feel like getting shot at again in my own Tower today. I guess I’ll see you later. Both of you. Together.” He heard a click that sounded like metal on metal and backed out of the room. “Sleep tight, kids. Don’t do anything I would totally do.”
He sprinted for the lab as soon as he’d closed the door. When he arrived, he took a moment to sort through what he’d just seen. Steve and Natasha as a thing. Steve and Natasha in bed together with very few, if any, clothes on. He wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes. It would have been completely worth the mini heart attack if only he’d been able to see some Natasha nudity. Eh, there was always tomorrow. He glanced at the upgrades to the arc reactor he was currently working on. “J, set up…actually, did you set me up?”
“Of course not, sir.”
He frowned, but nodded. He hadn’t ever gotten around to writing any serious deception subroutines into JARVIS’ program. “Right. So, explosions.”
Sam checked his watch when he woke up and found it had been a few hours since Tony Stark had barged into the room looking for Steve. He took a long shower and dressed in some gym clothes he found in the dresser that were a little big on him but would do just fine until he got a chance to do laundry. Slipping his feet into pair of slides from his duffel bag, he glanced around the room. “Um…JARVIS?”
The voice made him jump even though he was expecting it, “What may I do for you, Mr. Wilson?”
“Is, um, is Steve around?”
“Captain Rogers and Agent Romanoff are currently in the main kitchen. If you step into the elevator outside, I shall conduct you there forthwith.”
“Right.” He wondered why Tony Stark had programed his robot with a snooty British accent, but decided it was probably best not ask it too many questions. He smiled as he stepped into the elevator, just in case the thing responded to politeness or something. “Thanks.”
“You are welcome.”
He hoped he wasn’t expected to make small talk with JARVIS and jumped out of the elevator the moment it opened on the living space he remembered from the previous night, spotting his friends in the kitchen. “Morning, guys!”
“It’s two in the afternoon,” Natasha replied, yawning as she sipped from a steaming cup of coffee. “But hey.”
Steve was pouring batter onto a griddle. “We just got up, too, so don’t feel bad. Did you sleep okay?”
“Yeah. Except that Stark guy showed up in my room lookin’ for you.”
“He did? Oh. Sorry about that.”
“Mmmhm.” Sam poured himself a cup of coffee and took a seat beside Natasha at the counter. “Why’d he think you’d be in the guest room?”
There was a shared look and a blush from Steve before Natasha replied, “That was Steve’s room.”
“When?”
“Until this morning, apparently,” Tony Stark interrupted, bursting into the kitchen looking singed around the edges. “And the fire is totally under control, so nobody jump up to help out or anything.” Sam took his cue from Natasha and Steve who continued sipping coffee and flipping pancakes respectively. Stark went on, “Speaking of stuff that’s hot…you and Capsicle, huh, Natalie?”
She rolled her eyes. “Grow up.”
“What? You guys hook up and Birdman here knows all about it while I have to find out by accident because I happen to have no boundaries?”
Sam was unable to contain his laughter. “You seriously didn’t know about them?”
“Don’t think you’re some kind of insider just because you’re on a whirlwind adventure with Shrek and Fiona over here.”
“Please, man,” he huffed in response, ignoring the fact that he was pretty sure Stark had just called him Donkey. “They’ve been together since before I even knew them. If you didn’t know, that says more about you than anything.”
Over Stark’s increasingly high-pitched stuttering insults, Steve was blushing more furiously as he interrupted, “We, um…actually…we didn’t…it wasn’t…”
“What Steve is trying to say,” Natasha took over, pushing herself off her stool to walk over to the coffee maker, “is that we didn’t get together until after the SHIELD debacle. Stark, we haven’t really talked with you much since then, so it hasn’t come up.”
“Yeah, well…you should have sent a text or something. Why aren’t we on some kind of Avengers’ group app that keeps us updated on this kind of thing?” He plopped onto one of the stools, cramming bacon into his mouth.
Although his stomach was rumbling in response to the plate of pancakes and bacon Steve had just set in front of him, Sam suddenly wasn’t hungry. He felt like he’d just found out the world was flat. He tried to keep his voice level as he looked critically at Steve. “Hold up. Are you sayin’ that when I first met you two you weren’t Steve and Natasha? I mean, obviously you were Steve and Natasha, but I always thought you were Steve and Natasha! I mean, you might as well tell me I’ve been imagining gravity this whole time!”
“Well, we weren’t trying to trick anyone,” Steve said, still blushing a little as Natasha wove her fingers through his. “It’s not like you spent much time with the two of us together before we got involved romantically.”
“C’mon, man!” He thought about all the times between meeting Captain America and taking down the helicarriers when he’d had to remind himself not to flirt with Natasha because she was clearly taken. “You’re tellin’ me you weren’t a couple when you showed up at my back door looking for a safehouse? When you practically carried her into the secret bunker? When she jumped out of the helicopter when it was still ten feet off the ground because she saw you unconscious on the riverbank? Hell, the very first time we met she picked you up in that damn Corvette of hers and you were givin’ each other those grins!”
Steve shrugged. Natasha sing-songed, “Spy-y-y!”
Sam shook his head. “Thanks for the pancakes, anyway.”
“You’re welcome,” Stark replied. “What? My Tower, my ingredients…”
Natasha rolled her eyes. “We’ll head back to DC as soon as we have a new secure airfield.”
“You two didn’t even live together before?”
“Wait, you’re living together?” Stark exclaimed.
Sam decided to sit back and enjoy his breakfast as Steve and Natasha further explained their new situation to Stark. He was apparently way ahead of the curve on that.