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(no subject)

who: Sam & others
what: late April/early May catch-all
when: see above
where: around the city
warnings: none yet, will edit if applicable

Getting superpowers is the last thing Sam expects, but early one morning, he's woken up not by a noise, but by a feeling in his mind. (And, okay, by the sound of wings beating against his window.) Outside is the largest damn bird he's ever seen, a white gyrfalcon easily the size of a hawk. It cocks its head, looking quizzically at him before hopping in through the open window.

:You.:

Yep, Sam definitely hears that in his head. And while he knows the other Sam has a psychic bird, he's never shown the first sign of any sort of a rapport with his feathered friends. "Me?"

:Everything else, quiet. I hear you, come find bondmate. Strange place, not-home, need mind-friend to hunt with.: Images come along with the words, images and feelings - the confusion of being in a city, a familiarity with wilds and deep forests, the desire for someone to share his mind with.

(Does everything talk around here? Sam wonders for a moment.)

"Do you have a name?"

:Name? Hatched outside the Vale, never had a name.:

He thinks about calling him Redwing, but that would just be confusing, not to mention inaccurate. "Right. Well, we'll have to think about that, then." Not that he has any idea what to name a talking bird. Or how to feed him - although he's probably capable of hunting for himself. Sam's seen enough wildlife here, not to mention past the Perimeter, that it's pretty safe to assume there's plenty of food for a bird. (Maybe he can ask Bucky to bring in some smaller game.)

Right now, Sam just sinks back in bed with a sigh. He really doesn't know how to cope with this kind of thing.

--

open prompts:

i
It's early in the morning, and instead of jogging, Sam finds himself at one of the city's open markets. The bird (still unnamed) can hunt for himself, but he likes to have meat around for him, just in case. And he knows damn well he can't just go to a butcher's and buy it; it's got to be fresh. Which is why he's got a couple of packages under one arm; one of them happens to be leaking animal blood through the white paper and onto the sidewalk as he heads back home.

Sam pauses at a stall with fresh baked goods - he's not passing up the opportunity for cooking ingredients, either - and leans in to look at some pastries. "What do you think?" He asks the opinion of a fellow shopper; maybe they've tried the food before, or maybe they've got a thing for pastries. It never hurts to get a second opinion.

ii
Sam's alone in the gym - or so he thinks - when he tugs off his tank top and lets a pair of wings slide out of his back. There's a metal frame at the top of the wings, made from a light alloy; the wings themselves appear to be made of light, a rich, transparent ruby red. Sam's not flying with them at the moment; instead, he continues his sparring routine. It's important to get a feel for them even on the ground, to know how having them extended affects his combat - same way he'd practiced with the jetpack. (Which he hasn't abandoned completely; the harness is in a corner, and the discarded tank top appears to be sweaty enough that it should be obvious that he's worked out with the extra weight on his back, too.)

He hears a noise and swivels on the balls of his feet mid-strike, and the wings fold into his back again. "Sorry, I thought I was alone in here."

[ooc: Character-specific closed starters to come in the comments! In case you're curious, Sam has acquired a Tayledras bondbird (basically a psychic bird) and bird telepathy, plus a nifty new pair of bionic wings.

I'm also totally open to firefly prompts, but would like to discuss them first! Drop me a pm or a plurk if you're interested.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"What kind of bad results?" Because the worst thing he'd seen so far had been Ultron and Sokovia, and he couldn't imagine much worse than that - but he suspected that Stephen definitely meant worse.

(Maybe they should be drinking something harder than beer.)

"An other-dimensional Inquisition attacking, intent on destroying all magic, as well as torturing, maiming, and burning at the stake any magic users. They'd done it before in other dimensions, before anyone knew what was happening."

Look, Stephen wouldn't argue with something stronger to drink. Because he's fairly certain while he might give a basic explanation, he didn't know that it would be quite so much as this.

"They already destroyed thirteen other dimensions that I know of, I buried the Sorcerer Supremes of each one. I got pulled into this place in the middle of them trying to decide which of us Earth-born magic users to start the 'purification' with."

It explained just how much of a wreck he looked like when he first showed up, that much was for damn sure.

"They destroyed entire dimensions?" Sam's eyes widened in shock. "Hold on a sec." He stood up and darted into the kitchen, returning with a good-sized bottle of vodka and a pair of glasses - not shot glasses, as might have been proper, but larger ones.

"There." He poured a healthy amount into each glass and passed one to Stephen. "I can't even imagine what dealing with something like that must've been like."

Pants-shittingly terrifying, if he had to make a guess.

"Oh no. The dimensions themselves were intact... it might have been kinder if they did destroy them." Stephen was more than willing to set the beer aside for the moment in favor of the vodka Sam returns with, offering a faint, thin smile as he takes one of the glasses.

"It was fucking terrifying. Frustrating." He stared down at the vodka in his glass before draining about a quarter of it in one go, relishing the burn of the alcohol. "Exactly the sort of threat I should have seen coming."

"Why, though?" Sam paused in mid-sip. "Can you see the future?" Was that a stupid question? It was probably a stupid question, especially considering how serious the conversation was. He decided to shut up and let Stephen keep talking, taking a long, slow drink of his vodka.

"With the right spell, sure. But the future is... mutable. You can cast the spell and just by seeing the future it could already be changed." He shook his head, grimace deepening a bit, though not at Sam, more at the situation he'd described. "But it's literally my job to protect magic, and by proxy the Earth and everything else from mystical threats. That's what a Sorcerer Supreme does."

"But it's a threat you had no way of knowing about," Sam pointed out. "Like, I'm sure you were prepared for shit that passes for normal in the wizarding world - an infestation of dementors or whatever. But a multiverse-spanning magic-destroying Inquisition? Yeah, maybe not something you could've seen coming." He shrugged. "I could be wrong, though. Obviously I don't know much about the situation."

"There were warning signs. If I'd looked into it more seriously then maybe the magic wouldn't be dead and we wouldn't be dying." Maybe. Or he might have been in the same damn situation. It was hard to say really. But good luck tellin Stephen that.

Sam reached out and placed his free hand over Stephen's, lightly stroking the back of his hand with his thumb. "There's no way of knowing that," he said softly. "You can't keep blaming yourself for everything that goes wrong, Stephen. Not everything is your fault."

He was honestly surprised enough by the touch to his hand that he didn't protest. Touch in general sure, but so many tended to avoid his ruined hands, especially with how they always seemed to tremble even a little bit. Brows furrowing slightly, but tellingly enough he didn't pull his hand away from Sam's. He did however take another long drink of vodka.

"No, but it sure as hell feels like it. Every time. People put their trust in me to fix the situation, they put themselves in danger to give me an opening, and then I botch it. Boom, everyone dead because I was a shortsighted moron."

"Shit happens, man. Everyone makes mistakes." Since Stephen didn't pull away, Sam laced his fingers with his, his palm flat against the back of his hand. "Even a Sorcerer Supreme can't be perfect. I know the stuff I've seen pales in comparison to what you've been through, but trust me, I've seen my share of fuckups. Things go wrong because of just- something nobody could have foreseen. In a heartbeat, everything goes south, and you know what? Yeah, it's awful. I'm not gonna deny that, because I've seen the man I loved go down in a ball of flames. But you can't hold onto it forever. The people we leave behind would want us to remember them, but not like that. Not in a way that drags us down, too."

"You're right. I know you are. But it just..." A faint huff of humorless laughter as Stephen shook his head. Hand not moving still, but Sam could likely feel the stiffness in the fingers his were laced with. Not out of any resistance to the contact, but just... how they were at this point. "Doesn't stop this feeling. especially not when it's not just my standard. All mystics know me. Comes with the job description. So when something goes completely pear-shaped, they know who to come to for help. Also means they know who to blame when things can't be fixed, whether they say it or not. A whole new layer of 'fuck you' on the responsibility cake. Might not be your fault something went wrong, folk might not be the sort to blame others, but when everyone's hurting? By god they're gonna make sure you hurt along with them."

"You can't do anything about what other people think about you, man." Sam shook his head. Stephen knew that already - hell, everyone knew that - but sometimes it bore repeating. "You just gotta keep them from pulling you down. And I know it's hard, but it's necessary. Especially if you don't have a real high opinion of yourself to begin with." Not that he was implying anything there - okay, maybe he was. Just a little bit.

"Anyway, nobody's blaming you for anything here," he continued. "So just try and relax a bit before everything explodes in your face."

"Think that might be part of the problem." Admitted in a wry tone, ring finger idly tapping against the side of the glass in his grasp. "Don't think I remember how to relax... if I ever knew how to in the first place. Surgeons are still pretty terrible at stopping for five damn minutes from what I've seen."

Tellingly not commenting at all on the mention of self-opinion because nope, not going there, nope, plenty of other things to talk about today that aren't that.

"Hard to break the habit after all those years of med school," Sam quipped. "That's why most doctors are goddamn crazy." Or at least the brilliant ones are, the ones who worked day and night to be in the top of their class. Hell, engineers are the same way, from what he's seen.

"All right, I'm gonna get you to relax." And probably not in the way Stephen thought. Although Sam did stand up and start tugging him in the direction of his bedroom, motioning for him to- "Hell, we're out of hands. Can you float the bottle along or something?" Tucking it in the crook of his arm would work just as well, of course.

"Surgeons and sorcerers both, and here I'm the best of both worlds. Wonder how nuts that makes me in the end." Said in an amused tone though to be fair he was only kind of joking. He wasn't expecting Sam to suddenly decide to accept that challenge though, blinking a bit as he was tugged along to his feet.

And really, compared to levitating multiple books, or something like a car? A bottle is no big deal, so Stephen sets it to float along after them, at least until someone has a free hand to grab it.

"Get down on the bed, on your stomach," Sam commanded him once they made their way down the hall to his bedroom. He snagged the bottle from midair when he had a hand free, topping both their glasses off before he set it down on the nightstand. Once Stephen did as he was told, Sam seated himself comfortably on top of the other man, straddling his lower back.

"Goddamn, you weren't kidding about forgetting how to relax." A tentative prod at the muscles of his back with his fingertips revealed knots and tension that was beyond anything Sam had seen before. "If we had a hot tub, I'd make you sit in that sucker for about an hour first to loosen up." Heat in general would have been useful; Sam wasn't entirely sure of his ability to work the knots out on his own.

Stephen couldn't help but arch a brow at the order, but for the moment was willing to settle down as told, resting his head against crossed arms so he could still sort of peer back at the other.

"If you had a hot tub you'd never get me out of the damn thing." Too many years of tension built up, time spent waiting for the other shoe to drop, or dealing with the fallout when it did. His back was a mess of tight muscles and knots, including some tense areas of scar tissue which would definitely make trying to work him into any sort of relaxed state interesting, that was for sure.

Something in Sam's brain wanted him to skip the massage and just nestle against Stephen now that they were in bed, but he ignored the urge, instead digging his thumbs into the knots of muscle in his neck.

"Maybe I should look into getting one put in, then," Sam teased him. "Clothing optional, of course." Because while Stephen might have had one kind of relaxation in mind, Sam was thinking of a different one entirely (to no one's surprise).

Stephen just let out a low groan at the feel of Sam going after those knots, shifting so his forehead was resting against his arms to make it a bit easier on the man. With as much time as he spent hunched over books before, and the time he spent in this place researching? This was just what he needed, even if he'd never admit as much.

"So it'd be the fun sort of hot tub then? Sign me up." Said with a low chuckle, teasing back in kind.

"Is there any other kind?" Well, probably - he did, after all, have a roommate to consider, and while Sam was fairly casual when it came to nudity, he was pretty sure that he wasn't that casual, and he damn well knew that Wanda didn't want to see anything like that.

"I have a regular tub," he continued. "You're welcome to use that if you ever just need a place to soak. Free of charge. Man, I know having to deal with communal showers was real high on my list of reasons to move out of shared housing."

"Depends if it's home to a pissed-off naiad or not." That had been an interesting little job. Not one of the worst, but definitely... one of the odd ones.

"Is that bribery?" He snickered into his arms, the sound a bit muffled. "Usually I get bribed to go away, it's a brave new world."

"If it was bribery, there'd be baked goods involved," Sam admitted frankly. Although since he couldn't make baked goods that the other man could eat (and he was unwilling to experiment with eldritch horror cookies), maybe that wasn't the case.

"Just an offer to help you relax." And maybe it wasn't quite as innocent as that, but it certainly wasn't bribery.

"Well, bribery or not it's appreciated." Question is if anyone will convince him to stop long enough to stop and relax for a nice soak instead of a quick shower. He's a stubborn over-achieving disaster after all, the knots and tension Sam's feeling under his hands are testament to that.

"Some oil would really help with this, too," Sam mused aloud, his hands slipping up under Stephen's shirt, kneading his bare skin. "It'd make a mess of the bed, though." Stephen probably knew some sort of spell to clean up - or he could summon magic dancing broomsticks to do it - but that seemed like a waste of magic to Sam. (Plus he didn't actually have oil.)