Chapter Text
Sam,
I know there is a lot more that I owe you than just this, but please take it as an apology. I may have not been the best when it comes to accepting you as what you really are. A man who deserves my respect, and now, unconditionally has it. You are the only person to truly be able to step into Steve's footsteps, and maybe that's the reason I criticized your decision to give the shield to the museum so much. Be you, and show the world what a hero is supposed to be.
Sincerely, your James.
Even months later Sam still thought about the letter that Bucky put into the suitcase with his captain America suit. He was too irritated by it to actually ask Bucky about it. The only thing that he actually managed to ask was
»Sooo I can call you James now, or was that a one time thing?«
and to his defense Bucky really isn't the person to build up a conversation with, he just answered
»One time thing.«
So now there he was, awake in the middle of the night, thinking about this stupid piece of paper, that he probably shouldn't have cared about as much as he did.
Bucky and him have already been on a few small missions together and they seemed to be almost the perfect team. Except for the arguments of course, if you want to call them that, Joaquin usually refers to it as „unreasonable bickering“. Good explanation if you'd ask anyone besides Sam and Bucky.
Deciding to clear his mind a bit, Sam grabs his phone to maybe put on some music, as he suddenly sees a message from Joaquin
»Sam, there are some rumors about some kind of organization running in the area. Most evidence is coming from an old warehouse a little further away from the city. You think that could be something for you and Barnes?«
Sam for sure wasn't going to turn any mission down. Not since he became Captain America, a fairly stressful title to be honest. Bucky was making that a little more bearable. In some kind of way
»Sure, send me everything and I'll contact Barnes. Should we start today or can it wait until tomorrow?«
Joaquin took a few minutes to answer
»Calm down a little, I don't think this is too dangerous. Start tomorrow boss.«
Sam didn't like it when Joaquin called him boss, and he is 100% positive that's the reason why he calls him that.
He put his phone away and immediately went into the living room of his temporary rental apartment to open his laptop.
The files that Torres sent him were pretty much nothing outside of the usual. Some weird messages being sent on private servers, a few college dropouts, and receipts for guns and other small weapons all on the same bank account.
If anything, that looked like a reason for Sam to finally go to sleep and not worry anymore, but something about the details made him suspicious, more suspicious than it was reasonable to be.
So he sent Bucky a quick notice and the files, now staying awake the rest of the night thinking about what throws him off about this instead of the letter.