Chapter Text
It isn't their first accidental team-up with Captain America and the Winter Soldier -- frankly, at this point Marc is 80% sure they're not accidental -- but it's definitely the worst one.
Seriously: three heroes with flying powers, and they let the Ten Rings assassin (which they, in a "lucky total coincidence," all turned out to be pursuing at the same time) lure them into the sewers? Goddamn amateur hour, over here.
Moon Knight is at the back of the group, already having a bad time, when some chunk of the crumbling rock gives up its last bit of structural integrity under his feet.
In a split second everything goes from uncomfortably cave-like to this is literally a cave and it's flooding and we're trapped and going to drown--
We're not going to drown, Marc, thinks Jake urgently. Legs are pinned, that's all -- this water is absolutely goddamn disgusting, but it's only up to our knees, just gotta--
Marc barely hears it. His ears are full of a roaring, rushing void, his vision darkening around the edges as the last figure ahead of them (Cap, the new version, which means he's easy to see in neon-white spandex) vanishes around a bend.
He thinks he screams, but no sound comes out. He thinks the cowl is strangling him, but he dispels all the cloth around his head and neck with a thought, and he still can't breathe...
A la verga, this is a switching emergency if Jake ever saw one. Marc can flip out at him about it later. He pulls Marc aside, takes the body, ready to fight their way out of this thing...
...and gets swamped in the face with Marc's flashback. The grotty sewer bricks morph into granite cave walls with deep shadows -- ay Dios, they're closing in. And the water is rising -- there are no exits left -- no point yelling for help because nobody's coming...
Steven pulls both of them aside. He's the one who's got the emotional buffers for this, isn't he. Might not have the pointy cutting weapons, but he can bloody well call for help...
...only he's not sure he makes it into the body.
...at least, not all the way.
Everything around him is unreal, blurred and floaty, like he's having a waking dream...
This has happened to Steven before, he thinks vaguely. Last time he remembers it was when he got fired...sitting in the HR office, soft corporate-speak washing over him as he tried to keep up with the right responses, barely able to focus on one object at a time if he worked really hard at it...
He can do that here too, can't he? They'll come back for him. Just got to wait it out. Until then, he'll focus on breathing...
...
...
...
...footsteps. People running toward him...
Someone touches his face, tries to meet his eyes, asks a question he can't follow...
...
...
...they're cutting and digging away at the crumbled stone. His legs come free...
"Careful," says someone, "if they've been compressed for too long, he could have--"
"Anything physical, he can heal it," says someone else. A woman. The question-asker. "Just help me get him into the fresh air."
...
...he's walking, stumbling along, each arm slung heavily over somebody's shoulders...
...he's outside.
Fresh air.
An engine roars, too loud. Somewhere close...
"We've gotta go, Scarab. If they take off now, we'll never catch up."
"So we won't catch up," says the woman. Layla. Says Layla. "I'm not leaving him alone."
"I'll stay with him."
"You don't know what he's--"
"Is it superhuman trauma stuff?" interrupts the guy. "Because I know superhuman trauma stuff."
...
"...I'm the idiot who can't fly, you'd be leaving me anyway -- go. I got this."
...
...
...he's sitting in the scrubby grass at the edge of a parking lot, sheltered by a row of shipping trucks on one side and a short concrete wall on the other.
The night sky is clouded-over. Slanted stripes of dull sodium-yellow light fall between the trucks. Everything else is dark, squat gray buildings and tall metal structures breaking up the gloomy skyline.
Grounding, thinks Steven on reflex. Let's name five things we can see. One, a row of shipping trucks...there's at least five in the row, gosh, that could count as all five...
Our night vision shouldn't be this bad, thinks Marc, and puts a hand to his face.
It's bare.
He snaps back into the body -- hadn't even noticed his legs were cold, until Steven's soaked-through shoes and trousers get replaced by a fresh dry set of Marc's boots -- and re-summons the hood.
"Whoa," says a voice. "Does that mean you're back with us? Tell me five things you can see."
Marc looks with a start at the Winter Soldier.
The guy is sitting next to them with some kind of holo-tech projecting from his arm. Which he switches off, but not fast enough.
"One, a babysitter," says Marc testily. "Two, a game of Candy Crush."
"Yeah, I always thought that was a stupid exercise too," says Barnes. "My old therapist was always on me to make more general lists. Sports teams, colors, stuff like that. Never mind that all my sports knowledge was eighty years out-of-date even before I got Blipped, and what do I know from colors? Steve was the artist. He's the one who knew a million colors."
He means Steve Rogers, not you, thinks Marc, to soothe the paranoid little chill from the Steven in his head. Out loud, he says, "Are you gonna ask...you know...any real questions about what just happened?"
"Would you give me real answers?"
Marc's hesitation is long enough to speak for itself.
"Well, there you go," says Barnes, making a vague gesture with his non-metal arm. "Look, I'm gonna treat you as compromised until your partner gets back and evaluates you, no matter what you say. So why hassle you to say anything?"
Hey, I like this guy, thinks Jake. How come we don't work with him more?
He's probably making his own assumptions about the stuff he's just seen, puts in Steven, not quite as charmed. Whether we confirm them or not...it would be nice to know what they are.
Marc repeats that last part out loud.
"Hey, Sam's the smart one. I only analyze things long enough to make sure I'm punching the right people," protests Barnes. "I'll guess if you want, but you're not allowed to be offended -- if I'm wrong, it's your own fault."
The your own fault nearly knocks Marc out of his skin again. He only makes it through because the others are right behind him, so close and present that it feels like they're physically leaning against his back, not letting him fall. "Go for it."
"Let's see...I'm guessing the three-piece suit there was some kind of low-power mode. When you can't keep up the full magic hero outfit, but it's not safe to drop all the way back to normal."
I resent that, thinks Steven. I am not low-power mode, I am rescue mode.
No kidding. For once, Jake sounds unnervingly sincere. Don't worry, hermano, we know better.
Barnes has more. "I figure you were having a PTSD moment back there. Or close enough. Don't look at me like that -- I'm not grilling you for details."
Marc touches his face, just in case he's dispelled the cowl again. He hasn't. "How do you know how I was looking at you?"
"Because I know how I look at people," says Barnes dryly. "Which reminds me, one more thing -- I figure somebody's coordinating our missions so we keep 'coincidentally' running into each other."
"Oh, thank god, it's not just me," breathes Marc. "I keep meaning to ask La--Scarlet Scarab if she's trying to finagle us an invite to the Avengers."
"Sam just feels like I should have more friends, so I was guessing he's setting us up on play-dates." Barnes rolls his eyes. "Isn't it great to have partners who meddle?"
"The greatest."
Marc was trying to sound sarcastic there. He's not sure it came out right.
Something pulls Barnes' attention to the sky. When Marc follows his gaze, they can see the tiny figures of Cap and Layla soaring back toward them, white and gold against the velvet black. He gets to his feet, and Barnes follows.
"Before they get here," says Barnes, still watching the sky rather than trying to make eye contact. "I'll only say this once, and then never bother you again. If you ever want someone to talk to...someone who's good at their job, and has a handle on supervillain trauma in particular...I've got a connection in Wakanda. I can hook you up."
Marc is definitely not taking them up on it. Any competent super-therapist would start poking holes in their cover stories sooner or later. But it's a nice gesture. "Appreciate the thought."
"Don't mention it."
After a long pause, Marc adds quietly, "It's not supervillain trauma."
Barnes makes a noncommittal "hm?" sound. Like it's all the same to him whether Marc wants to elaborate on that. (In the back of his head, there's a much-less-subtle feeling of Steven and Jake both laser-focusing all their attention on what he says next.)
Marc waits until Cap and Layla are moments away from hearing range, then gives the shortest possible follow-up: "I was in the Marines. Before."
Which is absolutely steering their audience into the wrong conclusion, but screw it, it's not technically a lie. If anything, it's more truth than they've revealed to every non-Layla person in the world put together. Ten whole words of it!
If Barnes doesn't use it to screw them over, maybe some time in the future he'll go for twelve.