Since Germany, Sam's been holding it together for Steve's sake. Steve needs someone to be strong right now, after everything that's happened to all of them, even if he won't admit it. But the problem is that Sam isn't doing so hot himself; between what happened to Rhodey and his time on the Raft, he's more of a mess than he's willing to let on. He hasn't been this bad since he came back to the States after his deployment, but at least he'd been with his family then, and he'd been able to hole up in his room on the worst days. Right now, he has no choice but to push through.
Even on the run, Steve's determined to help people any way he can, and that means that they regularly find themselves in the thick of a fight. It's not one of Sam's good days, and his reflexes are slower than they should be. A guy with a knife catches a glancing slash along his ribs before Sam punches him out. He barely notices it in the adrenaline surge of the fight; it's only afterwards when he realizes his shirt's wet that he looks down at the spreading dark stain, the ripped cloth.
"Fuck," Sam says, and then he faints.
When he comes to, he's back in their motel room, laid out in bed. "I've had worse shaving," he croaks weakly, on general principle. And it's really not a bad wound, all things considered - it could be a lot worse. The blade could've gone through his ribs and punctured a lung, and then he'd be eight kinds of fucked (and possibly dead) right now. But he knows Steve's gonna fuss over him like a mother hen nonetheless, and he feels goddamn stupid for getting hurt in the first place. "You know how to stitch a wound, or am I gonna have to talk you through it?" Most other places on his body, he could probably stitch himself up, but the cut is too awkwardly positioned for that to be feasible. At least they've got a better than average first aid kit, including suture tools.
Sighing, Sam lets his head fall back against the pillow, trying to ignore the surge of guilt that rises in his chest. He should've stayed in Wakanda, he thinks - but with Nat off doing her own information-gathering and Wanda, well, being Wanda, Steve's on his own, and he needs someone with him, if only to keep him from running headlong into every goddamn stupid fight he finds. (Because Sam's clearly doing a great job of that right now.)
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Even on the run, Steve's determined to help people any way he can, and that means that they regularly find themselves in the thick of a fight. It's not one of Sam's good days, and his reflexes are slower than they should be. A guy with a knife catches a glancing slash along his ribs before Sam punches him out. He barely notices it in the adrenaline surge of the fight; it's only afterwards when he realizes his shirt's wet that he looks down at the spreading dark stain, the ripped cloth.
"Fuck," Sam says, and then he faints.
When he comes to, he's back in their motel room, laid out in bed. "I've had worse shaving," he croaks weakly, on general principle. And it's really not a bad wound, all things considered - it could be a lot worse. The blade could've gone through his ribs and punctured a lung, and then he'd be eight kinds of fucked (and possibly dead) right now. But he knows Steve's gonna fuss over him like a mother hen nonetheless, and he feels goddamn stupid for getting hurt in the first place. "You know how to stitch a wound, or am I gonna have to talk you through it?" Most other places on his body, he could probably stitch himself up, but the cut is too awkwardly positioned for that to be feasible. At least they've got a better than average first aid kit, including suture tools.
Sighing, Sam lets his head fall back against the pillow, trying to ignore the surge of guilt that rises in his chest. He should've stayed in Wakanda, he thinks - but with Nat off doing her own information-gathering and Wanda, well, being Wanda, Steve's on his own, and he needs someone with him, if only to keep him from running headlong into every goddamn stupid fight he finds. (Because Sam's clearly doing a great job of that right now.)