Chapter Text
The White House wasn’t like Sam had imagined at all.
He had been 24 when his mother had won the election and became the first black female president of the United States and even though many grown up children of the president didn’t live with them in the White House, he moved in, together with his sister and father anyways.
Three years later, he was back from two tours in Afghanistan, having a lot more life experience and missing half his soul.
When Riley had died, it felt like a part of him had died with him.
Now, here he was, first son of the United States, and he had no idea what he wanted to do with his future.
Of course that had nothing to do with how extremely proud he was of his mother and he didn’t hate the popularity that came with it.
He basked in the love the people gave him, trying to fill the hole deep inside of him.
Of course that didn’t mean that he didn’t miss the times when he had been just a normal boy living with his parents and sister in their little home in Delacroix, fishing to get food on the table.
He still wore the key to his parents’ boat on a chain around his neck.
Sarah, his younger sister who had recently started her culinary degree, had turned 24 recently and lived in the room just across his own.
He had missed her a lot when he had been abroad and was now trying to make up for all the time they had lost together.
So, most days, he could be found in her room, listening to her talk about the latest things that fascinated her.
“What’ you got for me today?”, he asked and his eyes fell onto the stack of newspapers next to her culinary school essay. Reading articles about themselves and all the fake stories the news seemed to spin was one of their favorite ways to spend their past times together.
“You made it onto the cover of the Washington Post for that event you went to last week”, she told him, as she turned the newspaper around for him to see the headline.
First son of the US and daughter of the prime minister; back together???
It read in bold letters, under a picture of him and some red carpet. His arm was slung around a red haired woman.
“You owe me twenty bucks.”, Sam smiled at his sister as he held out his hand.
Sarah gave a defeated groan.
It was a game they played; which one of them could get a new rumor started faster.
“Bringing Natasha with you to that event should be considered cheating. Everybody knows you two have a past.”, she whined, but moved to reach for her purse anyways.
It was true.
Sam had met the fierce red haired at the climate conference in Glasgow in 2021.
It had been first ever outing as the first son, so he had been extremely nervous. Up until Natasha had walked up to him and hadn’t let go of him for the rest of the night.
Granted, she had done it to get rid of a perverted asshole that wouldn’t let her alone, but they had spent the day talking and by the end of it they had been fast friends.
It was public knowledge that there had been a short time where they had given dating a try, but after maybe two weeks they had decided to just stay friends.
Now, they spend their time messing with the press whenever they get bored, starting new rumores from time to time, by meeting in a hotel room and binge watching TV shows the whole night.
Sam made sure that at least one person snapped a picture of him, when he left in the mornings.
Natasha, him and Sarah, who came along to outings occasionally, were dubbed the White House trio.
People loved them.
“I’m gonna have to talk about the rules with her when I see Natasha tomorrow. What are you wearing by the way?”, Sarah asked.
“Wearing to what?”.
“The wedding , dipshit. How can you forget this? It’s on the cover of every newspaper in town.”.
Sam was still confused, up until the moment Sarah handed him the paper.
On the front of the New York Times was a picture of Crown Prince Brock, looking as regal as one expected the Crown Prince of a European country to look, next to him a woman in a blue gown and a tiara in her hair.
The royal wedding of the century!!!
The Heir of the Romanian throne gets married to the Contessa de Fontaine.
Damn, Sam really had forgotten about this.
“That’s tomorrow?”, he groaned, as he leaned back into the plush pink of his sister´s couch.
“How did you forget? Were you that busy trying to avoid thinking about having to meet your arch nemesis?”, Sarah chuckled.
“Sarah, you can’t just call Prince James my archenemies. That would mean he’s my rival, which is total bullshit, because I have all the charm and he just looks like he bit into a lemon twenty four/seven.”, he scoffed.
“You don’t have to like him to pretend to be happy for a few hours and not cause any international incidents during his brother's wedding.”, Sarah sighed.
“When am I ever not happy?”, he replied, leaning over to steal one of the cookies his sister had baked.
Sarah tried to swat his hand away unsuccessfully. “Sometimes I really wonder how you are the older one among us two. Anyways, do you know what you’re going to wear?”.
Sam nodded and spoke with a full mouth.
“Had Hill pick out my outfit, as always and Fury already approved it.”.
“You are disgusting.”, his sister scolded him, but laughed.
Hill was their personal stylist and she knew that Sam couldn’t save his life to dress himself properly.
Sam was brooding on the plane ride over.
Sarah was reading something on her phone while Natasha was sitting in the chair across from him looking as graceful as ever as she painted her nails on a plane 30,000 feet over the Atlantic.
Clint, Natasha’s friend and Sarah’s plus one to the wedding, sat in the chair across from her, also on his phone.
Sam wasn’t really sure when Clint had become part of their little group, he just remembered Natasha showing up with him one day out of nowhere and he stuck around.
Next to him sat Pietro. He was one of the secret service agents that had been dispatched to the care of the first siblings.
His twin sister, Wanda, sat next to Sam, texting with her boyfriend back home.
She looked serene and calm, but Sam didn’t trust the image even for a second.
Wanda was trained in seven different martial arts and he had once seen her stab a man trough the hand with a plastic knife.
Pietro was a bit calmer than his younger sister, but he had once of the fasted reaction times Sam had ever seen.
“I don’t get it. Why does he have to be there?”, Sam asked, for what felt like the tenth time this past hour alone.
“He’s part of the royal family, Sam. Why wouldn’t he be there?”, Natasha asked back, without looking up from her work.
“I, for one, am excited to go. I have never met any royals before.”, Sarah piped up, putting down her phone.
“I heard he’s going without a date. Everyone is freaking out about it.”, Wanda added to the conversation. “The people are disappointed, because it appears the latest dating rumors hadn’t been true.”.
Sam snorts.
“Maybe the female population of Europe will finally realize that he has the personality of a cardboard box.”, he suggested.
Clint looked up and smirked. “You’re gonna ask him to dance then?”.
He made a disgusted face. “Hell on.”.
Wanda gave him a knowing smile.
There were a few things all people in the White house knew about: the husband of the president, Paul, liked to secretly smoke a cigar behind his wife’s back, Sunday breakfast was a private affair for the family, the first daughter loved to cook in the kitchen together with the chefs and the first son’s long standing grudge against the second Prince of Romania, James Buchanan Barnes-Pierce.
If you were to tell this to Sam’s face though, he would argue that it wasn’t a grudge.
It had been pretty early on, when the news and internet had started to compare him to Prince James. For everything Sam did, James seemed to have done it better.
After that Sam had started to loathe the Prince. While Sam had to fight hard for everything he wanted, not only because of his skin colour, but also because he hadn’t been born into this, James seemed to only have to move a finger and all the world lay at his feet.
Okay, maybe it was technically a rivalry.
“Can you believe they spent 75,000 dollars on the wedding cake alone?”, he changed the topic.
“I heard they had to break down the palace doors to even get it inside.”, Natasha added, looking at her nails in satisfaction. She looked as stunning as always and her nail color was perfectly matching her hair.
Sam took a deep breath. He could do this. He had his friends by his side and after all, he would only have to put on a smile for a few hours before he could go home again.
He leaned back into the soft cushion of the first class private jet and watched his friends as they started a discussion over something he hadn’t quite caught on.
Sam had never been to Romania before so touching down in Bucharest and getting to experience the city for half a day, before he had to spend the evening stuffed in a room with royalty and privileged white people, was a calming experience.
They stayed at the Marmorosch Bucharest hotel. Sam thought it to be quite nice and the fact that their entire trip was paid for by the royal family didn’t hurt either.
Sam was sharing a room with Clint, while the girls had their own rooms.
Their rooms were only two doors away from each other, the Maximoff siblings stationed in the room closest to the stairs.
While Clint lay down for a nap Natasha, Sarah and Sam decided to go and explore the city a little.
Sam was captivated by the beauty of some of these buildings and after taking a few pics in the Republican square with the palace hall in the background and posting them on his Instagram, which would make Fury proud of him, they returned to the hotel for lunch and were then getting ready for the wedding.
It was chaos, as always.
Natahsa was ready first and had turned to help Sarah with her hair and make up, while Sam and Clint struggled with their suits.
They were just normal boring suits, but Sam had never really felt completely comfortable in them and Clint was struggling with his tie.
In the end they made it on time, but only barely.
The ceremony itself was more about tradition and the public so Sam mostly watched, not really paying attention.
Afterwards the entire guests were invited to a more private celebration in the Royal Palace.
This was the part Sam had dreaded.
Having to listen to all those rich people and politicians talk about their favorite yacht or where they had spent their last super expensive holiday was sure to bore him to death.
It didn’t help that Prince James had completely ignored him at the beginning of the party, when they had been interdicted to each other.
Sam had originally planned to act as if nothing was wrong and he would have assumed that Prince James would also act civil towards him.
Turns out he was just as much of an asshole as Sam remembered him to be.
He really didn’t know how thousands of women on this planet looked at this man and decided he was desirable.
Sure, he wasn’t bad looking, in all his glory with slightly longer dark hair and dressed in a military uniform with a bunch of badges and pins and sash and all white gloves. Sam was enough of a man to admit that, but the dude’s personality really wasn’t it.
His face was in a constant state of frowning and Sam couldn’t remember seeing him smile ever.
But all this, he had decided, wouldn’t stop him from having a great time.
He had gone over to the Crown Prince and the Contessa to congratulate them in the name of the United States together with the others earlier, but they had since ditched him to mingle with the crowd.
For some time Sam did the same to keep up appearances.
He spent a short time conversing with the Princes of Asgard and listened in on the story Billionaire Tony Stark was telling loudly.
Somewhere halfway through the evening he tried finding his friend again, but he couldn’t spot Natasha and Clint anywhere. Sarah was gone, too.
He was just about to call out to Wanda on the sideline when he spotted his sister on the dance floor.
Sam had to look back twice. Was she really dancing with PRINCE JAMES???!!
He could see the Prince's lips moving as he said something that was apparently super funny. At least according to his sister's face. He knew that laughter. She only laughed like that when she was flustered.
Was he flirting with his sister???? Did Sarah enjoy the flirting??!!!
Only a second later he noticed the camera directed at the two and his mood soured. The Prince was using his sister’s fame for publicity.
Sam felt betrayal deep in his gut and moved over towards the bar to get himself a new glass of champagne.
One glass of champagne turned into two and two turned into three and Sam felt like time had passed, but also slowed down.
A small voice in the back of his head was telling him that he was drunk and should probably get a glass of water and not do anything stupid.
He was just about to listen to it when he spotted Prince James again, talking to the Crown Prince of Wakanda, near the gigantic wedding cake.
And before he could think about how bad of an idea this was he was already moving towards them two.
Just when he arrived he could hear the two men say something in Xhosa and only seconds later the crown Prince left.
Of course the Prince knew how to speak Xhosa. Was there even something out there he couldn’t do???
“Saw you dancing with my sister earlier. Planning to get a new rumor started?”, he asked, appearing next to the Prince, who jumped slightly at the sudden voice before his face returned to his ever resting frown.
“As far as I know this is an open ball and I am allowed to dance with whoever I like.”, he responded in flawless English. Of course even his English was perfect.
He was too perfect. Sam wanted to, he wasn’t really sure what he wanted to, maybe strangle him, make him lose his fake appearance; finally show his true face or any emotion at all.
“Do you ever get tired”, he asked instead, because he was pretty sure strangling the second Prince of a country fell under his mother’s ‘don’t cause an international scandal´ rule. “of pretending you’re above all this?”.
James turned to stare at him. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean by that.”.
“I mean you’re out here, getting the photographers to chase you, parading around like you hate the attention, which you clearly don’t, since you’re dancing with my sister.”, Sam scoffed. “you’re acting like you’re too important to be anywhere.”.
James looked at him for a second, took in the slight sway of his body and facial expressions, before speaking again. “You are drunk.”.
Sam was immediately offended. “The hell, I’m not!”.
He moved closer to the Prince to lay an overly friendly arm around the Prince’s shoulder. He was too drunk to notice the way he tensed up under his touch, instead mulling over the fact that he had a few inches of height on Sam.
“I’m just saying…”, his speech was getting slurry, maybe he should stop, but the look James was giving him made the anger flare up again. “you could try to act like you’re having fun. Occasionally.”.
James moved away from him, brushing his arm off his shoulder as he went.
“Maybe you should be sticking to water for the rest of the night.”, he suggested.
“Oh, sorry. Am I offending you? I am so sorry that I’m not obsessed with you like everybody else.”, his voice sounded fake, even to his own ears.
James looked at him, then he smirked and Sam was taken aback by the fact that he actually knew how to do that until the Prince spoke.
“You know what. Think you are, obsessed with me that is.”, and wasn’t that the most ludicrous thing Sam had ever heard. “It might have not come to your attention that every time we meet, you are the one to approach me, while I have only ever been civil towards you.”.
“What?! I’m not –“, Sam was outraged by the accusation. “Me? Obsessed with You? No way.”.
The Prince turned around to move away, while Sam was still flailing to get a complete sentence.
“Good bye, Sam. Drink some water.”.
That’s it. Sam was at the end of his line.
He moved forwards to stop the Prince from leaving, his hand landing on the man’s left forearm, but before he could do anything more James spun around with an intensity that Sam wasn’t expecting.
As James pushed him away Sam was surprised to find something akin to fear in his eyes, but he didn’t have time to marvel over this, as the push James had given him was strong enough to almost rip him off his feet.
Flailing and trying to get his balance back he blindly reached out to anything close enough to grab onto.
This something just happened to be Prince James and they both stumbled back, hitting a desk behind them.
Sam only had time to think for half a second when he tumbled to the floor, right next to James, as he realized that the table they had crashed against was the one bearing the seven tiered wedding cake.
To his horror the cake started to sway and Sam could feel his heart drop into his stomach as he tried to shield himself from what was about to happen, as the cake started to tilt towards the two men lying on the ground.
The last thing he could think of, before getting covered in 75,000 dollars worth of white cream cake, was how his mother was going to kill him.
For almost a minute the room was so silent you could hear a pin drop, as both Sam and the Prince tried to fight their way out of the messy and sticky heap on the floor.
“JAMES!”, a voice screeched through the room. The crown Prince’s face was red with fury.
Next to him, Sam could hear James mutter “fute-mă” * under his breath, as he tried to wipe the white cream of his face.
Sam didn’t even need to understand Rumanian to know that it was a swear, but before he had time to mull over the fact that the Prince used curse words he heard the all familiar shutter sound of a camera.