You’ve never been good at sitting still.

Even back in the service, when the hours dragged and the dust settled on your boots like a second skin, you found reasons to move. Patrol, recon, gear checks—anything to stay in motion. Retirement, they said, would be good for you. Quiet. Healing.

You lasted three months. Two of them were fine. The third nearly broke you.

Then came Bucky Barnes.

It wasn’t an official offer. Not at first. He showed up at your apartment in D.C. one night, wearing a coat too long and eyes too tired, like he hadn’t slept in days. He didn’t ask, exactly. Just said: “I could use someone who knows what it’s like to walk away from orders.”

You didn’t ask what kind of orders he meant. You didn’t need to.

That was eight months ago. Since then, you’ve found a rhythm, some blend of shadow ops and low-key intel work that straddles the line between old habits and a new sense of purpose. Bucky’s rough around the edges, but he trusts you. And maybe more importantly, he lets you breathe. Doesn’t expect the polished soldier. Just the person beneath the scars.

You don’t wear a suit. You don’t have wings. You carry a sidearm, a knife, and the kind of training that made you dangerous long before your name ever ended up on a government file. You’re not a superhero. You’re something else. Something in between.

Which brings you to now.

A dusty hangar on the outskirts of Louisiana. Sunlight filters in through broken panels in the roof, turning the air gold. You and Bucky just wrapped a quick containment op—some HYDRA offshoot trying to move stolen tech through the Gulf. Simple stuff. Mostly cleanup.

But Sam’s already here. And so is his partner.

Joaquin Torres moves like someone who’s used to the sky. Light on his feet, quick to smile, fast with a joke. He’s the opposite of you in every way. Where you’re quiet, he’s bright; where you’re steel, he’s sunlight. But there’s an edge to him too. Something sharpened by the same world that shaped you.

You’ve heard about him. Falcon 2.0. The wings, the flight, the way he keeps up with Sam like he was born for it.

He sees you across the hangar. Eyes flick to your gear, then your stance. A half-second assessment. You nod first.

“Didn’t know Bucky came with backup,” he says as he approaches, helmet tucked under one arm.

“He doesn’t,” you reply, folding your arms. “I’m just the one who tells him when he’s being an ass.”

That makes Joaquin grin. “That a full-time job?”

“Feels like it.”

He laughs, then sticks out a hand. “Joaquin Torres.”

You take it. Firm grip. Calloused fingers. A soldier’s handshake.

“Yeah,” you say. “I know who you are.”

There’s a beat. Something in the way he looks at you shifts. Not cold, not exactly, but curious. Like he’s trying to figure out if you’re a threat or a future drinking buddy.

“Sam says you’ve got a sharp shot,” he offers, as if testing the waters.

“And Bucky says you talk too much.”

Joaquin huffs a laugh, mock-wounded. “Wow. Harsh crowd.”

But he’s still smiling. And when he leans in just slightly, voice dropping low enough only for you to hear, it’s softer.

“I guess that makes us both sidekicks, huh?”

You glance toward Bucky and Sam in the distance, mid-argument over strategy or possibly sandwich orders, and then back at him.

“Call me that again,” you murmur, “and I’ll show you what the ex-military part of my résumé really means.”

He raises his hands in surrender. “Noted.”

But there’s no malice in it. No tension. Just a spark. Something that tells you this partnership, whatever shape it takes, might be the beginning of something that matters.

Because you’ve never been good at sitting still. And neither, you suspect, has he.