Chapter Text
Sure Sam Wilson wasn’t a supersoldier that survived 70 years being frozen in ice and he wasn’t a world renowned spy that could kill people with one swift kick. He wasn’t a super genius who made his suit or gave himself green superpowers in a lab accident.
Sam was just a normal guy, he likes to think that’s what made him a good Avenger, proof that normal people could be heroes too. But like all the other heroes living in the compound, he had some level of PTSD.
He didn’t talk about it often, he sometimes felt like he didn’t have the right to, there were people there who had been through so much more than he had. So he kept his mouth shut for the most part, went to therapy, helped out others as a way of therapy. But there were still nights where he stayed up and stared at the one photo he had left of his friend.
“Riley!” He watched as Riley fell out of the sky, a look of shock and despair on his face. “NO!” He couldn’t do anything, he couldn’t go get him, he was powerless as he lost his best friend. Tears streamed down his face in agony a scream getting caught in his throat as someone pulled him inside the plane.
He woke up with a start, the lights turning on and eyes immediately landing on an old photo.
“God I’m so sorry Riley.” He said to nobody in particular.
Some days were better than others.
++++++
Penny could already tell it was going to be a bad day.
She used to spend summer days like this with Kali, curled up beside her watching stupid children's movies and not doing much of anything as her mind ate away at her day in and day out.
Some days it was easier to cope than others.
But a lot has changed over the past year. She was no longer in her apartment, Kali had moved on and people would notice if she was upset. She was happy about that, that people actually cared, but sometimes it was better to be alone. She didn’t want to accidentally lash out at someone.
She woke up too late and there was a big Avengers mission, one that was a bit too complex for her level so they had left her behind.
“Good Morning Penny.” Howard said, looking up from his paper as she entered the kitchen. Peitro was gone too, he must have gone to watch over Wanda.
“Morning Howard.” She replied, looking at the fridge and her stomach automatically clenching at the thought of food, looks like no breakfast for today.
“Where are you going?” He asked, she paused from walking out of the kitchen.
“Uh- I just...forgot something in my r-room. Y-yeah, that’s right.” She said and quickly power walked away from him, back to her room.
As she sat in the corner of her bed and took deep shaky breaths she wondered what she was going to do with herself today.
“Get a grip Penny.” She said, only scolding herself further when she let out a sob again, why couldn’t Kali be here?
++++++
It was just past noon when she finally felt well enough to walk around, it was a nice day out anyways, no good was being done by wishing for something that would never come back.
She put on a pair of cargo shorts and a science pun shirt, before tying her hair back in a simple way that she could only barely execute. Kali had spoiled her over the years of doing intricate braids for her. She really should’ve gotten her to teach her.
The sun was really bright today, only making the concrete brighter, so she was forced to look forward instead of down.
She was only three blocks away from the tower when she was looking down too much despite her burning retinas and crashed into a guy. A guy covered in blood.
She wasn’t paying attention and crashed to the ground, blood sticking to her shoulder.
“Oh my god I am so sorry-” She stopped when everyone was looking at her, nobody paying attention to the blond haired man covered in his own blood. He looked confused and maybe lost.
A ghost.
She stood up and brushed herself off, the man was looking at her with curiosity. She took a deep breath and kept walking, he followed. That was relatively normal, ghosts tended to be curious at the best of times, dangerous at the worst. This dude had bits of metal shrapnel coming out of his back that dragged on the ground heinously behind him, she ignored the feeling of wanting to cover her ears and cry.
He followed her through the intersection, down the street and through a field until they reached a nearby park. She sat down on the bench.
“Hi.” She said, her voice small and cautious.
He was covered in blood, especially his back. Bones stuck out in various places and his skull was caved in at some parts. Looked like the sort of ghosts she saw on Vesey Street, who had to jump from the twin towers. She tried to avoid Vesey and surrounding areas at all costs because there were still so many ghosts despite the thinning. She also had to avoid some streets because of the Chitauri invasion.
But this guy didn’t look like he was a victim of 9/11, looking closer to the metal shrapnel on his back it appeared that was actually wearing a wingsuit similar to Sams. one of the wings was shattered and sticking outward and the other was barely recognizable.
“Hello.” He said, blinking at her. One of his eyes dangling beneath his socket, it was gross but nothing Penny hadn’t seen before.. “You can see me, can’t you?” He asked, sounding nervous, or maybe conflicted.
“I can.” She answered.
“Oh, good. I’ve been walking around for days, I’m looking for The Avengers tower.” He said with relief. This did not relieve Penny in the slightest, if anything she tensed up and got defensive.
“...what business do you have with The Avengers because if you’re just going to haunt them I’m not going to te-”
“No! I mean, no of course not. It’s just, my friend, I think he became one?” He asked, her eyes lit up in recognition.
“Sam?” She asked, he nodded with vigor, droplets of blood flying off him.
“Yes, that's him! So he really did become one? Wow.” He said with pride, Penny smiled at him as the blood lessened and bones snapped themselves back into place, he looked normal again as all blood disappeared, both eyes back in place.
“Yeah he’s really cool, you were friends with him?” She asked, his face fell a bit again.
“...yeah, we were both test pilots for the EXO-7 Falcon, and I was shot down with a RPG...I...I need to tell him it wasn’t his fault.” He said with drive.
“What do you mean?”
“He watched me fall.”
++++++
“Alright just one more bolt and voila’ good as new.” Howard said, working on Riley’s broken wing. He looked relieved with each new ghost bolt placed in. Penny would’ve helped put them back together but she has trouble making ghost copies of tools.
“Thanks Howard.” He said, extending it out and retracting it to practice the motion, it was completely secured. Penny wasn’t even aware that there were more falcon suits out there, it must have been some sort of government program.
“No problem kid.” He said, putting away the ghost tools in the lab. Howard was a lot more organized than Tony was.
“Kid? But I’m thirty-”
“Don’t take it personally, Howard calls everyone ‘kid’, which he rightfully should, he turns 100 next month.” She said Riley blinked at him in disbelief. He must have not been a ghost for very long, or at least not aware because Penny runs into people from the Renaissance daily.
“Anyways, do you want to record a video for Sam? He won’t be able to see or hear you normally but I’ve got a camcorder that can capture you, so you can say whatever you want.” She explained, he thought for a second and then nodded.
++++++
Sam had just finished taking a shower when he heard a small knock at his door. The mission was long and hard, even Vision looked tired out and he wasn’t sure if that guy could even sleep.
He immediately threw on a shirt and basketball shorts before opening it. He expected Bucky asking him to play chess or Steve to bug him about debrief but he instead had to look down slightly, meeting Penny’s hazel eyes who looked a bit natural, like she was waiting for his reaction to correctly place hers.
“Oh hey Pen...I-uh are you looking for Bruce because I think he’s asleep-” She shook her head. He tilted his head slightly, he wasn’t that friendly with most of the avengers not to mention their kids, so it was weird to say the least having one approach him out of nowhere.
“No actually, I just came to give you this.” She said, from behind her back she pulled out a 3mm cassette and her Camcorder.
“Uh...give me back the camera when you’re done but you can keep the tape if you want to.” She said shyly, shifting her posture nervously. He took the objects out of her hand, staring at the tape cautiously. Penny had always kinda had a little bit of a cryptic edge to her and Sam had no idea why she would give him a tape. He decided the nicest route was to just thank her for the tape given to him without any context. He would never understand kids.
“Yeah, ok, thank you.” He said, even though he didn’t quite know what he was thanking her for. She didn’t say anything else, she just quickly nodded and walked away.
He stood there for a second wondering what had just happened and then he closed the door, sitting on the edge of his bed to more thoroughly examine the tape. It could always be a mission maybe? That girl was always getting herself into trouble, maybe she found something?
There was a small label attached to it.
Saved Private Ryan
It was a reference to the movie ‘Saving Private Ryan’, which had been completely banned throughout the tower, mostly for Steve and Bucky but you never know who was going to be triggered by something next. He had next to no idea of why she changed it to ‘Saved’
So he took the cassette out of its case and slid it into the Camcorder with a satisfying click.
Shrugging and deciding that she probably was just showing him some nerdy project, he pressed play.
He could never prepare himself for what he saw.
“Alright, cameras on.” He heard Penny say in the background but Sam was more focused on what had been placed in front of him.
Riley. It was Riley, looking just like he did on that day.
“Right, thanks Penny.” He said, looking off to the side. Same blond hair, brown eyes, hell it was the same uniform, it was like he had been preserved in time.
“Hey Sammie.” He said, smiling at the camera. That’s what sent Sam over the edge, he was openly crying and wondering how this was possible at the same time. Then it came to him...Penny could see ghosts. And Riley had been dead for over a decade.
It only sent him crying harder as he continued.
“I heard you go by Falcon now, that’s amazing!” He cheered.
“I realized that after I died, that you might give up on the EXO-7...because of me, but here you are still standing as always.” He continued, Sam tried to clear his eyes enough to keep watching.
“I’m glad. I’m really glad.” He paused for a second. “I...the last thing I remembered...when I fell. Was you, I remember making eye contact with you seconds before the RPG hit, and I remembered how scared you look, how absolutely heart broken.” He said, looking upset. Sam was sobbing.
“Well knowing your heroic complex I knew you would blame yourself, but I’ve come to tell you that it's not your fault dummy.” He said, Sam let out a choked out laugh that turned into a sob.
“I’m dead. I know this and I know that nothing is going to change what happened that day but nothing you did was your fault. Penny told me that you blame yourself, but please don’t for my sake. You were the best wingman I could’ve ever had.” He said, smiling at the camera.
“I’ll see you on the flipside, but not too soon because I’ll kick your ass.” He said, extending his wings out and doing a flip with them.
The tape stopped whirring and faded to black.
++++++
It was hard to catch Penelope alone. He assumed it was normal, almost all The Avengers were protective over her to some extent.
But he did catch her about two days later as she sat alone on the couch, playing a game.
“Hey kid.” He said, announcing his presence and sliding onto the other end of the couch, she was playing Zelda, he remembered Harley teaching her a few weeks ago, now she seemed to be hooked on it.
She paused the game.
“Hey Sam.” She responded, automatically looking at her camera in his hands.
“Oh, uh yeah I brought your camera back.” He said, handing it over to her. She took it and set it beside her.
“Thanks.” She said quietly. That was the strange thing about her, she was relatively quiet but also confident. She knew what she was capable of and what she could hold over people. She just never talked about it. Sam was sure without wings she could absolutely floor him, he’s blaming it on the ancient form of Japanese martial arts that nobody can seem to defend themselves from.
She went back to her game for a few minutes, she appeared to be walking through a snowy area, her character wearing the snow quill armor so he didn’t freeze to death. Sam would give it to them, it looked like a pretty fun game compared to the Mario and original Zelda he would play, damn he was getting old.
“I’m really happy you did that.” He said suddenly. She paused her game again and looked over at him. “I mean...how did you even know about Riley?” He asked, she shrugged.
“He was trying to find you, I just helped him out and he told me his story, it wasn’t rocket science to put the two together.” She explained.
“You two seemed like you were close, so I thought you could use closure.” She said, a sort of glassy look appeared in her eyes.
“Kid.” He said, getting her attention as two eyes locked on his. “Have you had to watch people fall to their deaths before?” He asked cautiously. She blinked slowly and leaned back.
“Of course I have. I’m a vigilante, it’s a lot worse than being an Avenger. There are no medics, and we actually had a...terrible policy that if you’re dead weight, we will leave you behind.” She said, a glazed over look to her eyes. “Everything was a death sentence. If you twisted your ankle, you better hope that one of your friends came on the mission because random people aren’t going to come back to save you. If you get stabbed, you're screwed because we were all the ages between 11-18 and only about two of us had adequate first aid training and equipment.” She finished, Sam stared back at her.
“That's...so messed up.” He said, she nodded. “I’ve also missed people that jumped off buildings and I’ve helped them move on as ghosts but it still feels so wrong that I wasn’t able to save them while they were still alive.” She shrugged, looking away from him. Obviously locking up a lot of those feelings. It finally came to Sam that she could tell he felt guilt about that. She really was the daughter of a spy. She got up to leave but he called back.
“Penny. Thanks, you really don’t realize how much this means to me.” He said. “I t-thought that I was never going to see him again, and wouldn’t be able to know if he thought it was my fault, but you changed that fate for me, you really are amazing.” He explained, she stared at him for the longest time, like not many people told her this. Then she smiled.
“Thanks! I either thought you would be mad or just confused but I’m glad you’re happy, he’s happy too you know. Knowing you weren’t blaming yourself anymore he’s happier now, I thought he was going to leave but looks like he’s going to stick around for a while.” She said, her ecstatic voice coming back. He had noticed she had looked slightly more closed in these past few days, but she appeared to be back to her normal geeky self.
“That's great, kid.” He didn’t know much about ghosts or her power but he was grateful that his best friend was going to be alright and wasn't blambing him.