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This was probably the most embarrassed Joaquin had ever been. It was worse than the time he forgot to salute his commanding officer. Worse than the time his bunkmates locked him out of his room in his underwear. Worse than the time he upchucked all over his polished shoes right before inspection.
At least all of that shit didn’t happen in front of Sam Wilson.
But now, at Joaquin stood pinned to a wall, his hands tied over his head, and his leg bleeding all over the floor, all he could think about was what Sam was going to think. Granted, Joaquin probably shouldn’t have taken this mission on alone. The first rule of the military is that no one goes it alone.
And yet Joaquin had decided that he knew better, and how here he was, hanging from a wall in some abandoned hanger. His gear had been stripped away and his mechanical wings were probably lying somewhere in a ditch. He never expected to be captured so easily. Hell, he never expected an ambush at the rendezvous point, and he certainly didn’t expect Batroc the leaper to be so formidable.
“For Godssakes, the dude’s called The Leaper,” Joaquin said. “And wasn’t he supposed to be dead?” Who the hell could keep track anymore? Joaquin could feel a molar in the back of his mouth rattle and roll. If he got out of this alive, the first thing he was going to do was got to a dentist.
“Up already? Good, maybe now we can talk.”
Joaquin turned his attention to Batroc, a crooked smile gracing the man’s face.
“I thought you were dead,” Joaquin said.
Bartoc just shrugged his shoulders. “Who can keep track these days?” The Leaper stepped over to Joaquin’s side and checked the man’s restraints. “You comfy? I know how you Americans like things to be comfortable.”
Joaquin shook his chin, “Well, the bedside manner could be better. And it’d be great if room service could send me up a pillow.”
Batroc quirked his eyebrow. “I’ll have someone look into that.” Batroc licked his lips and patted Joaquin’s cheek. If Joaquin hadn’t know any better, he’d have sworn this asshole was holding back a laugh.
“So, what’s the end game here?” Joaquin asked. “If you want intel, you can forget it.”
And this time, Batroc really did laugh, a loud and a liquid thing that refused to be bottled. “My God, you Americans are so self-centered. It’s like you think the sun rises and falls on from your egos.” Batroc’s accent was so think that Joaquin could barely understand it, but then again, he didn’t really have an interest in what Batroc had to say. “You’re just here as bait for your flag flying partner. Nothing like a Falcon to catch a Captain, eh?”
Ah, so Joaquin was just bait to get Sam here. To be honest, he was a little hurt by that remark. Joaquin had been hoping that he had gotten enough street cred to be considered worthy of his own kidnapping, but no such luck. Oh well, it would come with time.
Batroc clicked his tongue and the sound echoed through the empty carrier. “You’re…Mexican-American, right?” he asked.
Joaquin nodded. “Yeah, what of it?”
Batroc raised his hands. “Sorry, I mean not to offend. I know that America is filled with tons of different people from Latin America. It would be rude to assume without confirming, no?”
Great, a politically correct international terrorist. That certainly wasn’t on Joaquin’s bingo card. “Yeah, I’m Mexican-American.”
Batroc nodded. “Then, perhaps you can shed some light on something for me.” He tapped his chin. “No doubt you’ve heard of all the…” he paused, “Shall we say, vitriol that comes from the mouths of some of your countrymen? ‘Build The Wall’, and the like, yes?”
“Yeah,” Joaquin said. He not only heard that kind of shit, he had to live with it. There were times when he’d walk through his neighborhood and people would put signs like that all over their lawns. Build The Wall. Send Them Back. America is Closed. It made Joaquin’s stomach turn. “What of it?”
“And that doesn’t bother you?” Batroc asked. “I-I mean, back in Canada, we’re not exactly opening our arms for foreigners, but it’s not like that kind of stuff is running rampant. And yet here you are,” Batroc flung his arms outward. “Running around with the living symbol of a country that hates you.”
“America doesn’t hate anyone,” Joaquin said.
“Ah,” Batroc said, “So people chanting ‘Go Back to Your Own Country’ is just a euphemism of love, no?”
That stung.
“When your countrymen get pissed because their busboy can’t speak English, that’s really just them expressing how happy they are that you’re here, right?”
Joaquin’s heart pounded and his molar throbbed.
“And when those proud and strong Americans say that all illegals should be shot and dragged out into the streets? That’s just them acknowledging how wonderful they think you all are, is that not correct little bird?”
Batroc’s words hurt more than any punch could.
“And yet, you decide to risk your life for a country that wants to exploit and destroy and maim and belittle people who cross the border to find a better life. You put your own ass on the line for a bunch of people who’d ship you off to ICE simply because you spoke a little Spanish?” Batroc began to laugh again. “So why do it? Hell, if it were me, I’d take that stupid suit off and tell Captain Douchbag to shove that flag so far up his ass that’d he’d be farting stars.”
Joaquin snapped his head up. “Don’t talk about Sam like that.”
Batroc grinned. “Ah, I’m sorry, I forgot how much you Americans love your propaganda. The Land of the free? You dumbfucks don’t even have basic healthcare. You can’t keep your kids from getting shot in schools but God forbid someone threaten your second amendment rights. Captain America is nothing but a stupid propaganda piece invented to sell war bonds, and you brainwashed Yankees eat it up like chocolate. And now, you’ve got a brand new DEI Captain to remind everyone how wonderful your bullet ladened country is.” Batroc looked to the ceiling. “And you guys say Russia brainwashes its masses, but they’ve got nothing on you guys. It’d be kind of funny if it weren’t so pathetic.”
Captain DEI. Joaquin was so tired of hearing that. Almost as tired of hearing stupid campaign slogans that only served to dehumanize anyone who wasn’t white and spoke perfect English. But even with Batroc’s comments, he wasn’t exactly wrong.
Joaquin wasn’t just an immigrant. He was a DACA recipient. His parents brought him to the States when he was very young. It was a hard fight to remain in the states and joining the Air Force was one of the ways in which Joaquin could manage to stay. He had lived and worked and paid taxes just like everyone else.
But no matter what he did, he was still an outsider. Someone who wandered the plains rather than lived them. He was a man with no country.
When Joaquin awoke again, his whole world had been turned upside down. Literally. The floor was above him and his booted feet pointed towards the ceiling. He was upside down, hanging from a chain like a punching bag in a gym. His arms still bound behind him.
“Bonjour petit alouette,” Batroc said. “I thought you might feel more at home in the air than on the ground. Granted, its no silk pillow but…”
“I’m touched,” Joaquin said as he swayed. “Such wonderful accommodations. Remind me to give you five stars on Yelp.”
Bartoc walked forward and grabbed Joaquin’s chest. “Still no Captain, I see?” He shrugged. “No matter, we can simply continue our discussion for the day before, no?”
Joaquin’s back tensed. “I’d rather we didn’t.”
“Oh come now,” Batroc said, “It was so riveting and what kind of host would I be if I didn’t entertain my guest?” Batroc walked in a circle, dragging Joaquin along with him. Joaquin let the blood rush to his head, the room became fuzzy and cold. The heavy pounding of Batroc’s boots sounded like war drums. There was a battle coming and Joaquin had no defense.
“America the home of the brave, no? The land of immigrants. Such pretty words. It is a shame it never lives up to them.”
And as the color left Joaquin’s face and the world began to swirl, Joaquin remembered. This was before he joined the air force. Before he could taste the clouds. Before he knew how the contradictions of America could tear is beliefs asunder. This was back when he was still learning what America was, or rather what it refused to be.
When he was in high school, everything seemed like it was dangerous. He had grown up in America. He had lived there for so long he could barely remember Mexico at all, and the only souvenir he had left of his old country was the language in his mouth. Spanish. A keepsake from a world too distance to hold.
Going to school was always a problem. If not for Joaquin than for a lot of the others. Joaquin was lucky, he had been in America long enough to speak like a native. He had no discernable accent when he spoke. But that wasn’t the same for Miguel.
Miguel, just like Joaquin, was an immigrant. Miguel’s family had arrived in the states earlier but Miguel had never learned to lose (or even hide) his accent. In the early mornings, the two boys would walk to school, their mouths filled with Spanish and their minds filled with girls.
“Tu quieres beijar Cynthia? Pero ella es una puta,” Miguel said.
“Hermano, tranquilo. Ella tiene una boca linda. Quero sabor la—“
Miguel smacked Joaquin’s chest before he could finish. “Dude, come on. I was just joking.”
The sidewalks were always filled with laughter on their way to school. Those were the times Joaquin loved the most. Once, as the two were walking up the school steps, speaking to each other someone (a parent, perhaps? Even now Joaquin wasn’t sure) stopped them both. The man’s face was redder than the sunset over the Arizona plains.
“What the hell are you two doing here?” he demanded. “This school is only for students.”
Joaquin shrugged his shoulders. “We are students. We go here, we’re registered and everything.” Joaquin placed his hands on Miguel’s back. Something was brewing and he didn’t like the look of it.
“No, I’m not buying that,” the man said. He wore a dingy baseball cap that sunk over his eyes. “Look kid, I’ve got kids who come to this school and we’ve had too many complaints of others coming onto the property and stirring up trouble. I’ve never seen either of you here and I’m gonna need you both to leave.”
“W-what?” Miguel said. He turned to Joaquin. “Que esta hablando?”
“El cree que somos matones,” Joaquin said.
“Speak in English, kid,” The man said, his voice growing sterner. “We speak English in this neighborhood.”
“We can speak whatever language we want,” Joaquin said, “And we are students here and if you don’t mind, we’ve gotta get to class.” Without another word, Joaquin grabbed Miguel’s sleeve and pulled him through the double doors. Joaquin had believed that was the end of it.
But he was wrong.
A week later Miguel didn’t walk with Joaquin to school. The week after, Joaquin still had no sign of his friend. The weeks turned to months and Joaquin even went to Miguel’s house to try and find him. There was no one there. The tables where Miguel and his family would have breakfast stood empty in the middle of the kitchen. The warm carpeting where Miguel and Joaquin would lay on winter nights had turned brittle and stale. The life that Miguel had lived in that house had been swept away.
“What the fuck?” Joaquin asked.
Joaquin went to school the next morning, his head filled with doubts. Where had Miguel gone? Where was his family? Had they just decided to up and move? And if so, why wouldn’t Miguel tell anyone? As Joaquin approached the double doors of the school he glanced at two white boys who stood, smoking in front of the window panes as if the rules didn’t apply to them.
“Shit man,” one of them said, “I can’t believe Mrs. Garcia assigned so much homework.”
“Right?” the other one said, “Who the fuck needs to learn Spanish? This is America we speak English here.”
“That’s exactly what my Dad said.” The kid flicked his finished cigarette from his finger tips and into the dirt. “He actually caught two Mexican kids trying to sneak onto the campus. He went straight to the office and made reported them. When those pussies wouldn’t do anything about it, he called the police and let them handle it. I hear one of them got deported or something.”
The other kid smiled. “Serves them right. Shit, send them all back. If they can’t even speak basic English they don’t belong here.”
And the words of that son of a bitch echoed through Joaquin’s soul. Someone had called the police on Miguel? Had they been taken away? Had they taken his family? That day, Joaquin couldn’t get the images of broken doors out of his head. The picture of some jack booted asshole kicking down Miguel’s door, and dragging him and his family kicking and screaming into the streets where no one would find him again. Locked away simply because his English wasn’t perfect? What the fuck was that?
How the hell could that be America?
How the hell could that be the land he and his parents had dreamed of for so many years?
How could a country that claimed to represent so much, still turn its back on the people who needed the most grace?
And Joaquin remembered, with every swing and every step and every flight and every mission, Miguel in his mind and a flame in his heart. A contradiction that demanded reprisal.
But there was none to be had.
“Come on petit alouette, I’ve got news.” Batroc stood over Joaquin a grin on his face.
Joaquin was still upside down, the room continued to spin with each passing moment. “Fuck you,” Joaquin said.
“Oh, you wound me little bird,” Batroc said. “But I’ve just gotten word that your precious Captain is on his way to release you from your cage.”
Joaquin shook his head. “No, h-he wouldn’t be stupid enough to fall into something you’ve set up for him. Sam’s too smart for that.”
Batroc turned his face so that Joaquin could see the frenchmen’s smile, right side up. “Petit alouette, you know just as well as I do that he’s coming to save you. Hell, that’s the one predicable thing about you Americans. You always leap head first at a chance to be a hero.” Batroc reached behind himself and pulled out a white cloth. “Can’t let you go warning him, now can?” He shoved the cloth deep into Joaquin’s mouth and tied it tightly behind his head. Then stood back and grinned.
“There,” Batroc said, “Bait fit for a hero, right?” He winked and turned towards the open door. “Don’t fly away now.”
Shit. Sam was going to walk right into a trap, and there wasn’t anything Joaquin could do to warn him, even trying to yell was futile because the cloth was shoved so far in his mouth, he could barely breathe. Someone Joaquin cared about was going to get hurt. It was just like Miguel, only this time, Joaquin had a front row seat.
Joaquin struggled and wreathed like a fly caught in a silk web. It was times like these that he wished he had a little bit of Steve Rogers’s super soldier serum.
“Bienvenue Capitaine,” Bartoc said loud enough for Joaquin to hear.
Sam Wilson, Captain America. The man who stood up for those who couldn’t stand up for themselves. To Joaquin, Sam Wilson was the living embodiment of contradictory. He was kind where soldiers needed to be harsh. He was patient when the situation warranted haste. Sam Wilson was a man who’s presence was so grand, he could even defy gravity if he had a mind to. As Joaquin hung there, waiting on baited breath, he wondered, would Miguel have been taken if Sam Wilson were Captain America at the time? Would things have been different if the shield were in the hands of another? Joaquin never asked Sam these things, being a Black man with the shield brought enough problems. Problems that no man, especially one as good as Sam Wilson, should have to shoulder.
But Sam still shouldered them. Everyday.
“How the hell do you do it, Sam?” Joaquin asked one day.
The two had just finished their workout for the day and had settled into the mess hall. Joaquin had heaped his plate high was beans, rice and whatever gray stuff the kitchen had decided to make that day. Sam, as always, kept his meal light. There was hardly anything on the man’s plate. Sometimes, Joaquin wondered if the guy called himself Falcon because he ate like a bird.
“Do what?” Sam asked as he placed a forkful of carrots in his mouth.
“Exist,” Joaquin said. “Just exist.”
The one thing Joaquin couldn’t stand about the Air Force base was that it always blared conservative news in every room, especially in the mess hall. And the thing the news hounded on the most was Sam Wilson, the new Captain America.
There were pundits everyday about how Sam Wilson was disrespecting the shield, how Steve Rogers would be rolling in his grave, how John Walker was clearly the superior man for the job and that Sam Wilson was just affirmative action, and thank God they were getting rid of it. And how Sam Wilson was making America look bad by bringing up what happened to Isaiah Bradley. Everyone knew that America was post racial and that Sam Wilson was just trying to divide the country by bringing up Critical Race Theory and White Guilt.
“All the shit they say about you,” Joaquin said. “And you and I both know it’s not just because you don’t have the serum. It’s nothing but racism and you just shrug it off like it’s nothing.”
And, surprise surprise, Sam Wilson shrugged and continued to eat his lunch. “Honestly, it’s not so bad. What pissed me off was when they were going after you.”
Joaquin had heard that the same political pundits were making snide remarks about Sam Wilson’s new partner being an undocumented immigrant. But, and Joaquin will never understand how Sam did this, the pundits stopped mentioning Joaquin all together. Was there ever a time when Sam wasn’t looking out for others?
“I mean, look at what happened with Isaiah Bradley,” Joaquin said. “An African American man who did everything he could to protect this country and they threw him in jail. And now there’s you, another African American man who’s trying to make this country live up to its promises and they crap on you. Daily. All the time and you still press on.” Joaquin said.
Sam Wilson still committed himself to representing this country every day, no matter how vile the things they said about him got.
“Because,” Sam said, “It’s always been my job to make this country live up to its promises. Hell, people who look like me have been doing that since 1619. People like Frederick Douglas, Maya Angelou, Marcus Garvey, Jackie Robinson, Zora Neale Hurston, Nikki Giovanni. They’ve always taught me to believe in the dream of this country. The belief that everyone can live and prosper and be happy, no matter how hard things get. That’s an ideal I fight for, both in this suit and out of it.”
For Sam, being African American meant being a man without a country. It meant being a refugee in a world that hated everything about you. Perhaps that’s why Joaquin idolized Sam so much. There was a kinship that Steve Rogers or John Walker, or hell, even Bucky Barnes, simply could not understand. They were always welcomed in the United States. They were always seen as heroes, no matter what they did.
But guys like Sam? Guys like Joaquin and Miguel? They’d always be the wanderers with no place to call home. And still they pressed on.
Falcon?
And even though the road would always be hard…
“Joaquin wake up.”
Joaquin would walk it the best way he knew how, right next to Sam.
“Joaquin, can you hear me?”
Joaquin opened his eyes to see Sam Wilson, Captain America, standing before him, his face upside down.
“Mmphh,” Joaquin said, forgetting about the gag currently shoved in his mouth.
“Hold on buddy,” Sam said, “I got ya.”
Faster than Joaquin could blink, Sam had cut the chain binding him. Joaquin was free and more than ready to stretch his arms. How long had he been hanging there? Joaquin took the gag off and grinned.
“Sam, you didn’t have to come all this way, I had it handled,” he said.
“I know Joaquin,” Sam replied, “But I can’t let you have all the fun. I’ve gotta earn my keep somehow, right?”
Sam Wilson never abandoned anyone. Shit, Joaquin didn’t even think that word was in his vocabulary.
“Where’s Batroc?”
“See for yourself,” Sam said as he pointed to the door.
Joaquin peered through the open doorway to see Batroc knocked up and wrapped in chains on the cold floor.
“Are you hurt?” Sam asked. “’Look, I’ve got a med kit stashed away, the sooner we get outta here the sooner I can get a look at you. SHIELD will be here to take care of Batroc.” Sam patted Joaquin on his shoulder.
No matter the odds, Sam never stopped fighting for an America that stood for everyone.
And neither would Joaquin.
“Joaquin, are you sure you want to do this?” Sam asked. “As proud as I am, doing this will put a target on your back. Those political pundits will be ruthless, and I won’t be able to stop them.”
Joaquin had never been more sure of anything in his life. “Yeah Cap, I’m sure. I’ve got you by my side and that’s all I need.”
Weeks after Joaquin’s discussion with Batroc, he knew he had to take a stand. Batroc was right about one thing, America was a country that was going back on its promises. And someone had to stand up for those who couldn’t stand up for themselves. There were countless immigrants all across the United States who woke up every morning, not knowing if ICE would be knocking on their doors, not knowing if speaking a foreign language would be putting a target on their back. There were so many Miguels in this country, and they needed to know that someone had their back. Wanderers needed to stick together.
Joaquin had set up a Youtube channel and a Bluesky account specifically for immigrants. He called it Falcon’s Nest, it was a place where he could give out tips about dealing with immigration, getting papers, finding translators and lawyers. Sam Wilson made it his mission to help those in need, and what kind of partner would Joaquin be if he didn’t step up too?
“All right Falcon,” Sam said as he positioned the camera. “It’s all you.”
Joaquin took a deep breath and began. “Hola mi gente,” he said, “Bienvinidos, hoy voy a hablar sobre ICE y como puede proteger su amigos. Quero hablar sobre um amigo, Miguel.”
Wherever Miguel was, Joaquin wanted him to know that his life meant something, and his sacrifices meant even more. Joaquin was a man with no country, but that didn’t mean he did not have a home. Sam Wilson reminded him of that every day.
And he would use that truth to build America into what it was supposed to be. A refuge for those who needed a place to stop their wandering.