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[on_your_right]

He's a wing down and a man short. Sam knows that all that keeps him hanging with the likes of Mystery Man and Captain America are the wings and without one, he's got to ground himself before he becomes more of a liability than a help. If you'd told him last month that he'd be staging an air assault against S.H.I.E.L.D and their souped up helicarriers, he'd have told you that you were insane and given some recommendations for good psychiatric care at the VA but Sam isn't laughing now and he's thinking that he's the one in need of good psychiatric care.

But damn, it feels good to be fighting the good fight again and it feels even better to know that Captain America himself is depending on him. It feels better than flying sky high with nothing but a set of metal wings strapped to his back and Sam had been pretty sure there was nothing that compared to the exhilaration of that.

Except this.

He takes a landing that isn't so much graceful as functional through one of the blown-out windows of the Triskelion and starts pulling at doors, trying to find the best escape route. Since most of the good guys are technically Hydra's guys at this point, Sam's not sure who to trust. He wrenches open a utility door that looks promising; maybe it heads down an old, unused maintenance hallway and he can find a way out without tripping all the guards from here to Arlington.

The decor doesn't seem to match the door. Instead of the utilitarian metal and concrete that's the hallmark of most government buildings, this one leads to plush carpeting and warm, cheery decor. It looks like a damn vacation compared to where he just came from and Sam cranes his neck to see around the corner as best he can, hoping he doesn't get shot while he's pulling his worst Roadrunner impersonation. That would be a damn mess. Rogers would probably try to spin it during his funeral that he died a hero but he thinks at least Romanoff would be snickering in the background. Can't get anything past her. He doesn't get shot (this time) and decides that maybe it's worth the risk. The halls seem empty of personnel, friendly or not, and maybe it's a chance to get the hell out and get somewhere that he can coordinate back with his team.

He likes the sound of that, being part of a team again, and grins to himself as he carefully works his way down the hall, trying to look as nondescript as possible. That's a little hampered by the twisted, broken wing attached to his back but maybe anyone he runs into will be so damn shocked that they won't notice he's only half a bird right now. Maybe.

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[captain_rogers]

If the Nexus had proved nothing to him in the days and weeks after his reintroduction to it, it was that every time he was certain he had a handle on the world, he was two seconds from having it pulled out from under him again.

Steve wasn't about to claim he enjoyed the repeated turmoil of his life, or that the lack of external steadiness to so much as the laws of physics or his understanding of his own past were anything like pleasant, but where the knowledge that the only constant was change would have left him frustrated and angry just a few years before, he had learned to live with it. Whether he would ever fully adapt to one before the next change hit or not, he figured the best he could do was to ride out the worst of it and try to keep his feet.

Nearly two weeks in female form had done nothing if not impress upon him that what was out of his control was out of his control, whether he liked it or not. While it hadn't been the easiest experience, or one he would have sought out if he had been given the option, he couldn't deny that it had been the least violent of lessons on the topic. A fact he was as grateful for as he was for the fact that he had woken back in his own body in as undramatic a fashion as he could have hoped for.

He caught sight of Sam turning a corner in the hallway halfway through his trip between the gym and his room, the flicker of surprise at the sight of him fading quickly into an easy pleasure at seeing his friend. "Sam!" He called out, changing directions without a thought to half jog toward the other man. "Hey! Sam!"

[on_your_right]

"Aren't you supposed to be tangling with the Bionic Man up on the ship?" Sam asks, confused as to why Steve's down here in the bowels of the Triskelion when there's still work to be done.

"Or did you lap me on that too?" This is good natured, at least, because it's hard to be upset at Steve Rogers for much of anything. He's a good man and a good soldier.

[captain_rogers]

Steve paused to crane his head up and over to take a look at what was on Sam's back as he came to a stop in front of him. The wings, huh.

He could no imagine no more clear a marker of when Sam had come through from than the damaged wings on Sam's back, although he hadn't seen what they had looked like in the aftermath of Bucky's attempt to tear them off like a mean little kid with a fly. His calculation was immediately reinforced by Sam's question, and for all that there was a whole tangle to do with timelines and a fear of bringing down Ragnarok (in Thor's words) for intervening in them, Steve was glad to see his friend all the same. No matter where in the battle he had just come from.

"Actually yeah, kind of," he replied, grinning as he stood easy and loose. "Stop me if I'm wrong, but I'm betting you just walked out of one door - maybe in the Triskelion or maybe on one of the helicarrier - and into one here. Am I right? Tell me I'm right."

[on_your_right]

"Triskelion, yeah. Is this some Hydra shit?" Sam isn't fully aware of all the tech that Hydra and S.H.I.E.L.D have between them and he's learning that it takes a genius to keep up. He's not a genius, he's just fool enough to follow someone out of loyalty.

"What do you mean here? Isn't this some basement in the Triskelion anyway? Some place where shadowy governments get together and drink brandy and try to figure out how to off you and me?"

[captain_rogers]

Steve denied that immediately with a shake of his head and a lift of one hand, "No, no. This is- something else." Where he had been blind to how Hydra had worked its way into S.H.I.E.L.D. and pulled the strings for too long, he had gone over every inch of the place and looked at every person he had met there for any sign that Hydra had some hand in its construction.

While Bucky's presence had been the hotel's greatest drawn in keeping him for weeks again already, it was that belief that had made it easier to sleep.

As easy as Steve ever slept these days.

"You want to-" he pointed over his shoulder toward the Bistro, "Want to go set your wings, uh, wing, somewhere and go get something to eat? This might take awhile."

[on_your_right]

"Yeah, I'm thinking I need a full stomach to process this," Sam agrees. He knows strange tends to follow Steve and the rest of the Avengers so he guesses this is just par for the course for them - typical Tuesday.

"Is there somewhere I can drop my gear that you know offhand?"

[captain_rogers]

New as their friendship was, Steve was relieved but unsurprised when Sam reacted with little fanfare to what was (and what was going to continue to be) one hell of a left turn in his day. "Yeah." He pointed down the hallway in the direction he had been headed before he had caught sight of the other man, "My room's not far from here, we can drop it there for now."

His friend's earlier words echoed back to him for a second as he lead the way toward his room, "There is actually a place around here that serves brandy, but I'm about fifty percent sure that if anyone there is drinking and plotting our grisly ends, it'd be more the rogue agent or bad guy from outer space type." He tipped his head with something of a smile, "You know how it is."

Only the uncertainty of whether or not he could trust the door back to their world not to lock him out had kept him from searching out Sam in D.C. right after he'd arrived back and run immediately into Natasha. The fact that time didn't seem to pass on the other side no matter how much he spent in the hotel had kept that option open, but...well, he'd gotten sidetracked.

[on_your_right]

"Well, if they wanna plot our ends, I want a drink first before I go," Sam says, chuckling a little. "Even a bad guy's gotta let us have a drink. It's in the rules or something."

Sam thinks he could go his whole life without running into another bad seed but he also thinks his friendship with Steve Rogers means he's going to get tangled up in that mess sooner rather than later. He's made his choice and he's going to stick with it.

[captain_rogers]

Whether or not Steve could drink in celebration or defeat and get anything out of it other than the taste, he couldn’t deny that he understood the urge to do so some days. Sam’s words then had his smile widening. “Yeah,” he said, tipping his head, brows furrowing in mock seriousness. “Sure, I remember seeing something like that in the Geneva Convention. Article 35, right?”

“I’ll point you to the bar later, if you want, but I’ve got to say food first,” he patted the flat expanse of his stomach as they reached the door to his room, “The buffet’s better than decent and if they might stare when you go back for plate number five, they never cut you off.”

Even had he not had a metabolism like a freight train and a caloric requirement that would make a SEAL in training blush, Steve would still be impressed by the idea of All-You-Can-Eat buffets. There were few places he could try one without drawing undue attention to himself, but there in the Nexus it didn’t seem to matter.

He unlocked the door, opening it to wave a hand toward the interior, “Just drop your gear anywhere.”

[on_your_right]

Sam drops his gear and thinks that Steve's probably got a point about the buffet. "Yeah, saving the world seems to make your stomach into a bottomless pit. It's no wonder the Avengers can put away so much food."

It's teasing but he imagines that it's got to be true. They've got Hulk and Thor, after all, and both of those guys look like they could eat.

[captain_rogers]

Two years or twenty two, Steve did not think he would ever forget that meal they had shared in that half-destroyed restaurant in the immediate aftermath of New York and the Chitauri. They had all been exhausted, both mentally and physically, hardly able to speak for the desire to eat, and then to go their separate ways long enough to shower and sleep before Loki had had to be dealt with. And still he remembered how Natasha and Clint had leaned into each other, slung across each other's chairs in a comfort of each other's physical space. As he remembered Bruce's approval of the meal, and the dazed look Tony had not been able to fully shake off as Steve himself had leant into one elbow in clear defiance of the table manners he had once been taught.

How many shwarmas they had plowed through before finally being sated, he had had no idea, but he thought he had seen Thor eat at least five or six by himself.

"You don't want to see my grocery bill," he told the other man with something of a full bodied shrug and a grimace, the action loose and rife with his own amusement, for all that he meant every bit of dread at seeing the total. "There's a reason I try to stick to the buffet here. They never charge you for it."

[on_your_right]

"Guessing that flashing your S.H.I.E.L.D credentials around here doesn't count for much, then." Probably doesn't count for much back home, either, but Sam is pretty sure that Captain America would never have to pay for a meal in the entire United States unless he just wanted to. He also knows that Steve's modest and probably wouldn't take advantage of it.

"Well, buffet it is. All you can eat, which means you're going to win this one too."

[captain_rogers]

"No," he replied, grinning as he shook his head. "No one really knows who I am here. Not unless they knew me already, but even those I can count on one hand and come up with a couple extra fingers." He pointed in the direction of the bistro and set his steps that way, keeping himself abreast of his friend as they went. In the weeks he had spent at the Nexus, strung between two trips several years apart, he had come to rely on the anonymity he found within its walls and the fact that he could stroll through the gardens or look at the paintings in the gallery without someone knowing exactly who and what he had been seventy years before.

Or, at least, thinking they knew exactly who and what he'd been.

"Thor's somewhere around here," he remarked, "Along with Sif and a couple other Asgardians. I haven't tried out-eating them yet, but I'm pretty sure they could make decent competition."

[shes_biochem]

Simmons has been trying, trying, and failing to find some kind of respite. She hates hiding away in the Nexus, but it feels like the only place she can breathe. Right now, she needs to be away from the motel and away from Fitz trying to rationalize Ward's actions away. She needs to be here, but here is suddenly a place with a familiar figure in the distance.

She had seen him on the news, after everything had fallen apart. "Sam Wilson," she blurts out his name, before she catches herself. "Sorry. I didn't expect to see you here."

Perhaps her world is invading this one. Maybe there really is no escape.

[on_your_right]

Sam doesn't know her. She's pretty and seems pleasant enough but he can't put a name to her face and that makes him feel a little bad - she obviously knows him.

"Sorry, I just got...turned around. You know how it is, right?"

When in doubt, play dumb.

[shes_biochem]

"I definitely know," Simmons agrees, seeing as she'd tried going to the bathroom the other day and had accidentally wound up staring into Ancient Egypt. She'd put a post-it note on the door for later perusal, but thought maybe it wasn't a good idea to go back until she had more research or perhaps a cat. "Sorry, it's just that you've been all over the news," she says. "At the Triskelion."

[on_your_right]

"Oh, well, good publicity, right? Don't tell me they've been telling lies on me," he teases. Sam holds out a hand to her.

"I'm Sam Wilson. I don't think we've met even if you know my face, am I right?"

[shes_biochem]

"I'm Jemma Simmons, with..." She pauses, because she's not with anyone, not any longer. How exactly does this work? What happens to the business cards, to the networking she's done? "Well, I suppose it's not SHIELD anymore," she says finally. "We managed to get our team out in time, though...not all of us were uncompromised."

[on_your_right]

"Damn. That's hard," Sam says but it feels a little empty because how do you comfort someone who just had her whole world turned upside down?

"Well, promise you, I'm one of the good guys. Maybe we'll just get a new team name, right?"

[shes_biochem]

She doesn't know if she trusts anyone at the moment (outside Fitz), but the truth is that Sam Wilson seems to be a likely candidate for someone who can be trusted. After all, if Captain America is on his side, then she can't really protest that. "It's such a shame," she says, mournfully. "I had just gotten used to reciting the acronym when someone asked what it stood for."

"Are you considering joining up, then?" she asks curiously.

[on_your_right]

"I'll volunteer, if they want me," Sam says. He's always been willing to volunteer to do something hard - it's how he'd ended up in the Air Force to begin with. Steve inspires him to be the best he can and to take pride in something and it's hard not to want to help him.

"You guys have any kind of official set up here or what?"

[shes_biochem]

"It's really only Fitz and I here," Simmons admits, which has been rather helpful at the same time as it's been frustrating to be without full resources. "We have a room set up with some tests. There was a time I could go back and get additional resources, but I'm afraid that time is over, now."

[on_your_right]

"Yeah I wouldn't recommend that," Sam says. He speaks from first hand experience on that and doesn't want Jemma getting hurt trying to get some computer or something.

"Your department get hit hard with the HYDRA thing, then?"

[shes_biochem]

Simmons' face goes blank at the same time that her eyes water slightly, a combination of the stoicism and the hurt she's been fighting with since everything happened. "One of our team members turned out to be HYDRA, hiding under our noses the whole time." She hadn't wanted to believe it, but the evidence had been too damning.

[on_your_right]

"Always seems to come out of nowhere," Sam agrees. He doesn't have as much experience with it as, say, Steve but he as a soldier and private citizen liked to think of SHIELD as the good guys and not a bunch of hidden snakes.

"Well, if I have anything to do with it, we're going to clean house and get the HYDRA out and the good guys back in. I'm sure there's more of you than them anyway."