thecapitol | so i'll keep going till we've run out of road

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so i'll keep going till we've run out of road

Who| Sam Wilson and YOU (prompts for specific characters in the comments)
What| Back from the arena and fresh from a canon update, Sam’s dragging people into blind spots and trying hard not to lose it over Steve and Jet
Where| The Speakeasy, various Capitol blindspots
When| After the end of arena 14
Warnings/Notes| Discussion of death, PTSD, will update as needed

It’s likely a surprise to no one that Sam isn’t doing so great right about now. With both Steve and Jet not coming back from the arena, Kurloz stuck as an Avox, and Albert and Bucky unreachable in District 13, the number of people left that Sam’s started to think of as part of his family is… not all that high. He’s working real damn hard at not letting himself end up the way he had when he lost Riley, but there are times when it’s a close call.

Playing along with the Capitol and getting sponsorships and ad campaigns gives him something to do with his time, gets him the money he needs to survive now, and hopefully takes some suspicion off of him, that he’s willing to follow what the Capitol says - but it doesn’t exactly do a lot to take his mind of off things. And he’s got a lot of things on his mind, especially with whatever the hell this is that’d gone down between when he died in the arena and when he woke up here with an extra year or so’s worth of memories. For the most part, when he’s not working, he sticks close to what’s left of his team, because he knows it’s a bad idea to let himself be alone right now.

Still, every once in a while he can be found alone in the Speakeasy, nursing a drink and people watching.

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Sam’d sought her out pretty quickly after he woke up from the arena, for a number of reasons. To make sure for himself that she’d come back, to thank her for looking after Kate while he and Clint were gone, to check in on how she was doing - and to try to get her to a place where he can tell her about what’s changed between when he last saw her in the arena and now that he’s woken up.

It surprises him when she’s the one that starts leading them in the direction of a blind spot, but he goes with it immediately.

“I did have something to tell you, but I’m thinking maybe you should go first.”

Terezi is equally surprised that Sam was seeking her out, but she has to agree that whatever he plans to tell her can't possibly be as important as the information she's been sitting on for over a month now. It's been painful not to talk about it, but she also knows that he's the only person she can trust with it. He's the only person who can pull it off.

"Okay," she starts, taking a deep breath and trying to calm herself. She's antsy in the worst way, sniffing over her should to make sure no one is keeping tabs on them. "When we were in the arena, I got my Sight back. So I started searching for some way to get Kurloz out of the Capitol. And I think I found one."

And that has his attention almost immediately. He doesn't even question her Sight thing, honestly - his teammates are an AI given a body an conscious and a woman who can manipulate peoples minds, he is past the point of questioning things like that from people he trusts.

"Whatever I can do, I'll do it."

Terezi is glad that he's so immediately on board. Out of everyone that's left on this side, he's one of the people she trusts the most. It helps a lot that this vision involved him. It gives her hope that it might work.

"I couldn't see everything. It's... It comes in pieces, and it was really hard to concentrate in that arena," she starts, preparing him for how vague her details are going to be. "I don't have a when or a where exactly. I know it's going to happen at night, and it's still summer--so it'll be soon. But you're going to have a chance to run. You and Bucky and Kurloz. There's a fourth guy. I'm not sure that I recognized him. There was something weird about him, but he's going to help you. You won't have a lot of time to grab things, so you have to keep anything you want to take with you together."

There's a pack that Terezi brought with her, and she takes that moment to slip it off her shoulder and offer it to Sam. "I put some of Kurloz's things in here. His paint and one of his pets. I don't know if they'll help him with the avoxing, but they did the first time... They should go with him. I put them underneath a bunch of my dumb propaganda comics to hide them. You can put whatever else you want in there, or move it to a new bag. Just make sure to take it with you."

There's a moments pause where she tries to check over everything mentally, followed up by quickly with: "Oh! And Kate! Kate was there. But you sent her off somewhere. I don't know where she went, but you'll probably know what to do with her when it happens. Just make sure you keep her around, too."

Edited 2015-08-04 03:18 (UTC)

Sam listens, filing away everything she says - even if it's vague, maybe it'll be important, and he's not going to risk forgetting something that might have helped him pull this off.

As she talks, though, he gets a little uncertain. He'd told Albert on the lonestar post that he wouldn't leave the Capitol without Bucky or Kurloz or Clint, and he still means it. The fourth guy - realistically, it's probably someone from 13, someone making a run to get Tributes out, or maybe just someone running their own mission that Sam can attach his onto. Terezi would have said if it was Clint, but - she said she wasn't sure, maybe she just couldn't See clearly, or however the hell this thing works.

But he's not going to ask about that. There's something else she'd left out that's bugging him, and he frowns a little at her as he takes the bag from her.

"You're not coming?"

She should have expected that question. She was disappointed herself when she realized that she wasn't in the picture. But there was nothing that she could do about it. That's how it works. She can either accept it or wait for another chance--and she's not willing to wait.

"No, I'm not. I wasn't in the vision. I have to trust that you and Bucky can pull this off. That is part of being a Seer. Sometimes I don't have a part to play in the things that I See. I just have to make sure that they happen how they are supposed to happen."

Yeah, Sam doesn't like that answer all that much. He has very few people here left in the Capitol that he really trusts, that he cares a whole lot about, and he doesn't like the idea of leaving her behind.

"What would happen if you tried anyway?"

And this is where Terezi's lips press together in a thin line. Explaining timeline shenanigans to people has never been the best conversation. "Something bad. Time is a vengeful cosmic force. If you don't follow the path that you're supposed to be on, it will rend everything you know and love into pieces."

"That being sad..." She shrugs her shoulders a little. "I don't know. It would probably end in one or more of us getting caught. That is not the kind of risk that I am willing to take." Not with Kurloz's life and well-being on the line.

Time is a vengeful cosmic force, and shit, if Sam didn’t feel like he was in a scifi movie when he officially joined the Avengers alongside an AI with a body fabricated by a murderous rogue robot and given consciousness by a super genius and a Norse god, he would now.

There’s a brief moment where he wants to be bitter, over If you don't follow the path that you're supposed to be on, it will rend everything you know and love into pieces, because he learned a long time ago that the world doesn’t need a reason to do that, but he just sits with the feeling for a moment before he lets it go.

He learned to do that, too.

“Then I guess it’s not one I’ll ask you to take, even if I’m tempted.”

"That would be for the best," Terezi agrees with a solemn nod. "It's not one that I am going to take, even if you ask." She's dead certain of that. She wants this plan to succeed, no matter what. She's glad that Sam seems to understand that.

"You said you had something to tell me, too?" She's said all that she can think to tell him about the escape: Who to take and what to bring and to be ready soon. If there was something else they needed to talk about, then it feels the right time to ask about it.

Yeah, Sam gets it. He wants this plan to succeed no matter what, too - he's been trying to get Bucky to 13 for months, and he'd promised Kurloz that he'd get him out of this.

...and if he's tempted to at least warn Clint, well, he just won't mention that.

Instead he nods, letting out a huff of air.

"Doesn't seem quite as important now after what you told me, but yeah. The Capitol's got my wings."

If Terezi has any idea that Sam intends to not follow her request to the letter, she doesn't seem to show it. She lets the matter settle, moving on to Sam's news.

"Your wings?" That's a phrase that she's not one hundred percent knowledgeable about, though she understands the uneasiness of the Capitol having any of their possessions. Rather than second guess Sam's concern, she takes it as is. If it's something he's concerned about, then she'll be concerned as well.

"I am going to guess that you don't mean feathery ones."

Sam quirks a small, wry smile. “Nah, the metal kind. That’s what I did in the military, before I retired. We weren’t exactly regular PJs - uh, regular pararescuemen. Me and Riley had wingpacks, that’s how we were able to get in places they couldn’t send helicopters.”

He pauses, trying to figure out how to word the next bit, because that’s the part that throwing him. He still isn’t sure what the hell’s going on.

“Didn’t think it mattered when I first came here, because they were in pieces at the bottom of a river, but shit changed. When I got back from the arena last time, it was like I’d gone home and come back and now I’ve got a year’s worth of memories I didn’t have before I went into the arena.”

Wingpack. Something like hers is what she imagines at first: A jetpack with wings, essentially. Her own was a pair of red dragon wings, but it sounds like Sam's was something a little more mundane. If that's the case, she's not sure why this is big news.

"So I am going to guess that your wings are not at the bottom of a river like you thought? Are they dangerous? Do they do something other than flying?" Maybe she's missing the point of the concern here. She's not entirely certain just yet.

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so i'll keep going till we've run out of road

Terezi

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