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“You’re not wearing your armour flying thing,” you told the Falcon “Just Call me Sam”.
“No I am not,” Sam replied with a smile. He’d been doing his best to keep you distracted but after him letting you win twenty ping-pong games you were exhausted. Or maybe that was the point of playing the game. Now you were sitting on the bottom floor of Avengers Tower with freshly made lattes, acting as if there wasn’t an epic battle going on across the planet. In fact, he’d confiscated your phone just so you couldn’t check Twitter for updates. The last thing you’d heard was the earth around Sokovia was breaking and seeming to lift into the air.
The look on Sam’s face was pleasant, calm, but you could tell he didn’t want to be there just as much as you didn’t. You were both wishing you could be in battle, but whatever Steve had told him was enough to keep him here, watching over you. You looked at the cute leaf Sam had put in your latte and tried not to smile at the Avengers secret talent. He’d made you promised not to tell Steve.
“Cap tells me you’re having a bit of trouble staying in control,” Sam said, finally touching on a subject other than your superior ping-pong skills. You shrugged and twirled your cup in your hands. Sam scratched the back of his head, leaning back in his chair with a small sigh. “I heard about your little nap.”
You pursed your lips. “Yup.” You shifted uncomfortably, your side aching with the small movement.
“That’s never happened before?” he asked.
“I’m sure Steve has told you everything,” you said. Your raised your eyes to meet his. “Why don’t you fill me in a little; I’m not too clear on your abilities.”
“That makes two of us,” you stated. When all he did was tilt his head to urge you on you sighed and decided there was no way out. “It’s electro-magnetic; everybody has this aura around them. I can just manipulate mine—it’s larger, more powerful.”
“Can you manipulate other people?” he questioned. His smile was joking but you thought there was more to the question.
“No, I can just sense where people are,” you admitted. “Not who they are…just that someone is there. Not that useful in battle.” You sipped at the latte.
“Try very useful in battle, and on stealth missions,” Sam countered. You set your cup on the table and tried to cross your arms but quickly uncrossed them when pain radiated through your middle.
“Yeah well I’m not feeling much right now.” You let out a puff of air.
“Hey wait till everyone gets back,” Sam said. “Sounded like the Maximoff kid had a couple ideas on how to help you. But you didn’t hear that from me.” He took a drink from his cup.
“Pietro did? What did he say?” you questioned.
“No his sister.” Sam raised his eyebrows at you as a blush crept over your cheeks. You sunk down a little in your chair, staring intensely at your cup.
“Right,” you said quickly, “she said something to me that sounded…weird.” You blinked as you kept staring at your drink, vision beginning to blur a bit. “I uh…I think I need to lay down after all those games.”
Sam nodded, letting you have your little escape. As you stood Sam got up and stuck his elbow towards you and you gladly took his help. Heading to the elevator you asked for your phone back.
“I thought you were going to rest,” Sam said.
“I like listening to music.”
As the elevator doors opened you felt Sam’s muscles tense beneath your fingers. With another sigh he reached into his pocket and pulled out your phone, passing it to you. “Just promise me you’ll keep Twitter to a minimum.”
Once you made it to a bed you were actually tempted to go to sleep, but when you started playing your favourite playlist you found the news of Sokovia was too much to ignore. You opened every social media page you could, scanning hundreds upon hundreds of photos for any sign of the Avengers and the Maximoff twins. All you got were blurry shots of metal men and some low angle photos of Sokovia lifting into the air. At one point you found Captain America hanging off of a bridge, saving a woman from falling but that was the only evidence you had that any of them were still alive.
You bit your lip, resisting tears. You weren’t going to lay there feeling sorry for yourself, you weren’t! Not when there were people out there risking their lives, people you were supposed to be helping. You took little solace in what anyone had said, but there was a little hope that Wanda Maximoff would return and maybe shed some light on your abilities.
Sitting up you slid onto the floor and set your phone in the palm on your hand. You focused your energy on your barrier and tried to push it upwards, levitating your phone. Pain shot through your temple and it fell into your hand. Shaking off the residual pain you blinked hard and tried again, this time getting it a little higher.
You continued to practice until your vision tunnelled in front of you, and eventually you passed out somewhere between constantly checking Twitter and pushing your barrier as far as you could in the small room.