![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
swiftraxI started this story after a prompt on the Move Your Seat Up discord. Posting for WIP Amnesty Wednesday.
If you're too young to remember, Early Edition was a cute show from 1996 that ran for 4 seasons. It was about a regular guy who suddenly starts receiving the newspaper a whole day in advance, and decides to try and save the world.
The Falcon and The Winter Soldier - Early Edition AU
1K Words
Rating: G
Sam Wilson / Bucky Barnes
Sam would like to blame it on the terrible night’s sleep, but when he hears the faint thwap of a paper landing on his front porch accompanied by the disgruntled meow of a cat who doesn’t enjoy the D.C. precipitation, he rolls over, puts his pillow over his head and screams a little bit.
Yesterday feels like a fever dream, except Sam has the bruises to prove it. Getting the news a full day in advance had felt like winning the lottery at first, but now Sam can feel the weight of the responsibility sitting heavily on his shoulders.
That cursed sense of duty that the Air Force instilled in him when he was still young and impressionable wins out eventually, and Sam pulls on his tartan robe and braves the early morning chill to retrieve the paper. The cat doesn’t give him a choice in the matter, and lets herself inside with a normal feline level of indifference to his opinion.
“By all means, make yourself at home,” Sam tells her, as she hops up on Sam’s usual morning perch by the kitchen window.
He hasn’t been game to look at the paper yet, and leaves it folded shut and tucked under the latest edition of Bird Fancy magazine. While he can’t say his coworkers are particularly original in their April Fools day pranks, the joke is on them because he’s actually started to look forward to their arrival each month. Besides which, he can now authoritatively annoy them with endless bird facts.
The coffee machine gurgles and hisses, but eventually spits out something resembling a latte, so Sam takes a seat opposite the cat. Just as he’s about to pull the paper back out and face whatever horrors await, someone very loud and very insistent starts banging on his front door.
He gives the cat a ‘what the fuck?’ shrug, and gets an ‘are you serious?’ tail flick in return.
“Keep your shirt on, man, I’m coming,” Sam yells, walking over to the front door and peering out the peephole. The guy outside has his back turned, and all Sam can see is tight jeans, a leather biker jacket and some shaggy brown hair.
Sam opens the door just a crack, and leaves the lock-chain bolted. With his other hand, he reaches for the glock he hid behind the key bowl after he discovered he could somehow see the future.
“Can I help you?” Sam asks, and the guy turns around. Sam’s mind kind of grinds to a halt at ‘holy cheekbones Batman’, before tripping over ‘oh god don’t look at his mouth’ and landing on ‘eyes...pretty’. It’s not his finest moment.
Fortunately the man at the door hasn’t noticed Sam’s internal crisis, and is instead trying to look past Sam into his house.
“Uh, are you Sam Wilson?” The guy asks, and there is a strangely familiar drawl to his voice.
“Depends, who’s asking?” Sam recovers enough of his faculties to remember basic stranger danger.
“I’m looking for Sam Wilson, the Pararescue guy. I know there are like, five hundred Sam Wilson’s in D.C. but that was all Steve left me to go on, so please for the love of God tell me I’ve got the right one?” The guy begs, looking a little wild around the eyes.
“Okay, yeah. I’m Sam Wilson, former Pararescue,” Sam opens the door fully, and when he does he notices a few things in quick succession. One, the guy is even better looking without the screen door in the way, and two, he’s got a very modern, very sleek-looking prosthetic left arm. If this guy is a possible veteran, then Sam will just have to handle the situation in a professional manner.
“I’ve been looking for Steve, but the trail’s gone cold. Did Steve give you anything?” the guy asks, as if Sam should know what the hell he’s talking about.
“Steve? Who the fuck is Steve?” Sam crosses his arms, and glares, deciding professionalism is for other people right now. It’s far too early for some angry dude looking for someone else to be banging on Sam’s door while he’s still in his robe.
“White guy? Blond hair, 6’4”, muscles out to here?” The guy makes a gesture that implies improbably large boobs, and all at once it hits Sam. He knows exactly who Steve is.
“That asshole? Yeah, I know Steve.” Sam laughs, thinking of a bizarre morning spent jogging at the Lincoln Memorial, and the chaos that followed after.
Sam got the feeling Steve was involved in something shady the day he and his red-headed friend had crashed at Sam’s house, covered in dirt and bruises. He hadn’t asked any questions, just let the two of them use his shower, eat his food and hide out for a while.
“Did he give you anything?” The guy looks even more consternated, and Sam is starting to wonder if the scary black-clad assassin look is more than a fashion choice.
“Yeah man, he gave me a pocket-knife,” Sam says, switching to his best ‘Counselor Sam’ voice in case the dude doesn’t like what he has to say.
Steve had been unusually interested in getting to know Sam, but at the time he’d just put it down to some very inept and inexpert flirting. After Sam told him about his job as a PJ, and losing Riley, he thought he and Steve had managed to navigate into a tentative friendship.
When Steve disappeared off the face of the planet, leaving Sam with a half-assed apology note and a small pocket knife with a shield emblem on it, Sam had just shaken his head and tried not to mourn too much for the first relationship he’d made outside of work in years.
“Oh God.” At that, the guy just kind of sags, and runs a hand through his already messy hair.
“Is Steve okay? I haven’t heard from him in a long time,” Sam asks carefully.
“I don’t know,” the guy says, looking defeated. “I was hoping you might know what happened to him.”
If you're too young to remember, Early Edition was a cute show from 1996 that ran for 4 seasons. It was about a regular guy who suddenly starts receiving the newspaper a whole day in advance, and decides to try and save the world.
I really loved this concept for Sam, so I wrote a short meet-cute between him and Bucky.
The Falcon and The Winter Soldier - Early Edition AU
1K Words
Rating: G
Sam Wilson / Bucky Barnes
Sam would like to blame it on the terrible night’s sleep, but when he hears the faint thwap of a paper landing on his front porch accompanied by the disgruntled meow of a cat who doesn’t enjoy the D.C. precipitation, he rolls over, puts his pillow over his head and screams a little bit.
Yesterday feels like a fever dream, except Sam has the bruises to prove it. Getting the news a full day in advance had felt like winning the lottery at first, but now Sam can feel the weight of the responsibility sitting heavily on his shoulders.
That cursed sense of duty that the Air Force instilled in him when he was still young and impressionable wins out eventually, and Sam pulls on his tartan robe and braves the early morning chill to retrieve the paper. The cat doesn’t give him a choice in the matter, and lets herself inside with a normal feline level of indifference to his opinion.
“By all means, make yourself at home,” Sam tells her, as she hops up on Sam’s usual morning perch by the kitchen window.
He hasn’t been game to look at the paper yet, and leaves it folded shut and tucked under the latest edition of Bird Fancy magazine. While he can’t say his coworkers are particularly original in their April Fools day pranks, the joke is on them because he’s actually started to look forward to their arrival each month. Besides which, he can now authoritatively annoy them with endless bird facts.
The coffee machine gurgles and hisses, but eventually spits out something resembling a latte, so Sam takes a seat opposite the cat. Just as he’s about to pull the paper back out and face whatever horrors await, someone very loud and very insistent starts banging on his front door.
He gives the cat a ‘what the fuck?’ shrug, and gets an ‘are you serious?’ tail flick in return.
“Keep your shirt on, man, I’m coming,” Sam yells, walking over to the front door and peering out the peephole. The guy outside has his back turned, and all Sam can see is tight jeans, a leather biker jacket and some shaggy brown hair.
Sam opens the door just a crack, and leaves the lock-chain bolted. With his other hand, he reaches for the glock he hid behind the key bowl after he discovered he could somehow see the future.
“Can I help you?” Sam asks, and the guy turns around. Sam’s mind kind of grinds to a halt at ‘holy cheekbones Batman’, before tripping over ‘oh god don’t look at his mouth’ and landing on ‘eyes...pretty’. It’s not his finest moment.
Fortunately the man at the door hasn’t noticed Sam’s internal crisis, and is instead trying to look past Sam into his house.
“Uh, are you Sam Wilson?” The guy asks, and there is a strangely familiar drawl to his voice.
“Depends, who’s asking?” Sam recovers enough of his faculties to remember basic stranger danger.
“I’m looking for Sam Wilson, the Pararescue guy. I know there are like, five hundred Sam Wilson’s in D.C. but that was all Steve left me to go on, so please for the love of God tell me I’ve got the right one?” The guy begs, looking a little wild around the eyes.
“Okay, yeah. I’m Sam Wilson, former Pararescue,” Sam opens the door fully, and when he does he notices a few things in quick succession. One, the guy is even better looking without the screen door in the way, and two, he’s got a very modern, very sleek-looking prosthetic left arm. If this guy is a possible veteran, then Sam will just have to handle the situation in a professional manner.
“I’ve been looking for Steve, but the trail’s gone cold. Did Steve give you anything?” the guy asks, as if Sam should know what the hell he’s talking about.
“Steve? Who the fuck is Steve?” Sam crosses his arms, and glares, deciding professionalism is for other people right now. It’s far too early for some angry dude looking for someone else to be banging on Sam’s door while he’s still in his robe.
“White guy? Blond hair, 6’4”, muscles out to here?” The guy makes a gesture that implies improbably large boobs, and all at once it hits Sam. He knows exactly who Steve is.
“That asshole? Yeah, I know Steve.” Sam laughs, thinking of a bizarre morning spent jogging at the Lincoln Memorial, and the chaos that followed after.
Sam got the feeling Steve was involved in something shady the day he and his red-headed friend had crashed at Sam’s house, covered in dirt and bruises. He hadn’t asked any questions, just let the two of them use his shower, eat his food and hide out for a while.
“Did he give you anything?” The guy looks even more consternated, and Sam is starting to wonder if the scary black-clad assassin look is more than a fashion choice.
“Yeah man, he gave me a pocket-knife,” Sam says, switching to his best ‘Counselor Sam’ voice in case the dude doesn’t like what he has to say.
Steve had been unusually interested in getting to know Sam, but at the time he’d just put it down to some very inept and inexpert flirting. After Sam told him about his job as a PJ, and losing Riley, he thought he and Steve had managed to navigate into a tentative friendship.
When Steve disappeared off the face of the planet, leaving Sam with a half-assed apology note and a small pocket knife with a shield emblem on it, Sam had just shaken his head and tried not to mourn too much for the first relationship he’d made outside of work in years.
“Oh God.” At that, the guy just kind of sags, and runs a hand through his already messy hair.
“Is Steve okay? I haven’t heard from him in a long time,” Sam asks carefully.
“I don’t know,” the guy says, looking defeated. “I was hoping you might know what happened to him.”
Tags:
