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Sam's got his wings back. He's got the sky back. He spirals above Manhattan's towers, climbing an asphalt-warmed updraft above the helicopters, dancing from breeze to breeze towards the cloud deck, alti- and speedometers pulsing on his shoulders. The clouds loom fluffy white and he punches straight into them, drinking in cool mist and soaring through the rising glitter, greeting the sunlight with a whoop as the wind rushes over and under and right through him. He's back.
And he's alone, between the endless blue and the sheeted clouds, his shadow stamped out sharply by the sun above him. Guilt flickers in his heart but the racing wind blows it out; remembering wind-tossed brown hair and a sweet cockeyed smile, Sam knows Riley wouldn't begrudge him this. He may not have his wingman to race and chase him across the sky, but he knows who else belongs up here in the endless sunshine. "Hey, Steve," Sam calls into his comm, "still on the roof?"
"Yeah, where are you?" crackles in his ear, he can hear Steve squinting upwards.
Sam laughs and folds his wings, pressure imploding in his ears, air singing across his skin. "Get ready for pickup," he doesn't-quite-answer, pulling out of the dive in a long banked curve, down through the clouds and across towards the dark steely sparkle of Avengers Tower.
"Wait, I should change," Steve starts, so Sam cuts him off with a snort.
"It's not a drill." He sweeps sideways, and there's Steve, blond head shining even in the diffuse light, jacket fluttering in the breeze, hand cupped above his eyes as he looks in entirely the wrong direction. "On your right," is impossible to keep from saying so Sam doesn't even try; Steve turns, eyes going round, arms falling wide, and Sam has to grin like he has to breathe. He hits Steve squarely, chest smacking broad chest, grabs him under the jacket and heaves him into the air like a very heavy angel.
"Oof," Steve wheezes, warm breath in one ear and neutral comm in the other, and Sam grips him a little tighter around his narrow waist and heads straight up, laughing triumphantly as they win against gravity's drag. Steve can handle it, wrapping a strong arm around Sam's neck, pressing the other across his lower back under the wing pack. "Where the hell are you taking me?"
"Ooh, language," Sam barely gets out past the laughter tightening his belly, as Steve's jacket flaps across his forearms and his wings beat faster almost without his conscious thought.
Steve rumbles, lips skimming hotly across Sam's ear as he hooks his knees behind Sam's, pressing them flush. "I won't scream even if you drop me."
"I know how to make you scream," Sam counters, the clouds rearing up like a fleecy wall.
"And you'd never drop me -- oh, whoa." Glancing up, Steve gasps, crackling down Sam's sparking nerves as they hit the cloud deck with no more impact than a cool wet rush.
The mist highlights Steve's heat all down Sam's front, his hard fingers digging throbbing dents at shoulder and waist, and Sam tingles everywhere he's not sweetly aching, his heart so full he's gotta shout. "Don't shut those baby blues," he calls, cheek pressed to Steve's by acceleration, sunlight swelling through the thinning clouds until they burst into its brightness and Steve gasps again, throaty and unconsciously sensual.
Sam laughs this time at himself, so lit up with flying and with Steve he's gone hard, his pulse pounding in wrists and throat and crotch. His first thought is to try to push down the arousal but, he did say this isn't training; instead he leans back into a thermal, flapping lazily as he shifts Steve up over him, gravity pushing them together rather than tugging them apart. Steve's tense back eases under his grip, Steve's weight on his chest edges each breath with pleasant effort, and Sam concentrates on hanging on and listening to Steve inhale pure air and exhale wonder as he looks around. Steve's long appreciative whistle harmonizes with the wind's reedy song, and if Sam puffs a little with pride at sharing an unexpected delight with his sturdy blond personification of unanticipated delights, well, he's earned it.
"Oh, my God, Sam," Steve finally murmurs, hushed as in church, and Sam tips his head back to see Steve's wide exalted smile, his eyes blue and limitless as the sky around them. "I've done over thirty jumps, but I never…"
"Got the chance to just look," Sam finishes for him. "Now you can anytime you want, as long as I've got my wings."
Steve lights up like a second sun, eyebrows arching high and smile flaring to a grin, a happy little shiver rippling through every inch of him stretched out over and tangled up with Sam. His pink lips purse as if he's about to say some polite thanks, his eyelids flicker as he thinks twice; Sam watches it coming as Steve's fingers tighten on his shoulder, Steve's arm nudges his head up, Steve's blue-sky eyes darken as his mile-long lashes sweep down and he pulls Sam in.
The wings beat time with Sam's racing heart as he kisses Steve back, a lush press of lips flaring into openmouthed tongue-tangoing. Steve hitches his hips up over Sam's, dragging the long hot bar of his erection across Sam's so they shudder into moans, echoing each other. Achingly turned on and pushing into the kiss for more, Sam remembers dreaming of fucking while wearing his wings, the rush of flight allied to the rush of sex, and has to laugh his joy over Steve's lips, has to slide a hand down to palm a hard curve of asscheek, has to do a barrel-roll of sheer delight to match the endless swoop inside him as he necks with Steve up here in the sky.
Steve whoops over his tongue, buzzing through his lips, and laughs cheerfully, setting Sam off so they have to pull their mouths apart. "You like that, huh?" Sam puffs as Steve vibrates against his chest; he spins them again and Steve groans in his ear like they're fucking indeed, low and hot, tingling down to his toes.
"Like you," Steve rumbles deep, rippling through Sam's skin as the wind streams across them, deliberately twitches his hips across Sam's to win a low groan, and presses his flat-toothed grin into Sam's cheek.
Damn, this is something else, and Sam struggles to think before his brain shuts down entirely in favor of his dick. "We really doing this?" Steve drags parted lips along his jaw, humming distracting affirmation. "Then maybe we should land, I don't have the harness-- "
"C'mon, it's perfect up here." Another press of teeth, edged this time as Steve bites lightly beneath his ear. "Cloud cover and everything," he rumbles into the tingling bite, and Sam shudders, heat streaming down his veins, and gives the fuck up on thinking.
"You just love me for my wings," he accuses, tightening his thighs around Steve's, his arms across Steve's back, as Steve laughs fondly into the side of his throat, hips rocking against hips. "Crazy-ass adrenaline addict."
"That your professional--" Steve punctuates with a thrust that drives a gasp out of Sam-- "opinion?" He presses kisses and nips up and down Sam's throat, driving him higher and higher, and if they keep on like this Sam might just come in his pants.
"Voice of long -- oh" as Steve snaps his hips again, "long experience, c'mon, there's lube packets in the repair kit. You don't wanna chafe, right? I didn't figure that for your kinda thing." Sam's more than half reminding himself that's not actually his, no matter how urgent the rush in his blood.
Steve hums assent. "Repair kit?"
"Left strap pockets. Try the second. And kiss me again." Steve chuckles and does, a downright sweet dance of lips as he carefully unwraps his arm from around Sam's waist, trailing broad fingers over Sam's side, and reaches up.
Sam can feel Steve's hand on the strap as if on his skin. He holds his breath, not giving into any of the temptations before him, as Steve pries out a packet of silicone lube and tidily snaps the pocket. "Hey," he murmurs over Sam's mouth, gripping Sam's bicep, the packet pressed beneath his palm, "You should take this --"
It makes sense, Steve's the stronger one, but… "Nope, you drive." To free a hand Sam would have to let go of Steve, and he is not letting go, not up here, maybe not ever.
Steve blinks and winces, clamping his streaming eyes shut, which is how Sam realizes the speed they've climbed to. If he slows down too fast Steve will overshoot right out of his arms, so he sets them in a wide banked curve that presses them together impossibly closer, and Steve gasps and hides his face in Sam's neck as he works Sam's pants open one-handed. "You too," Sam mutters before Steve gets any ideas about being chivalrous, and Steve's eyelashes flicker over Sam's pulse as he smiles against Sam's throat, his fingers busy between their bodies.
The first press of skin against tender heated skin is always a welcome shock; Steve crushes the packet open and curls slick fingers around them both, and Sam has to hiss through his teeth, has to search out Steve's mouth, bumping his goggles into Steve's cheekbone. He's barely got his lips parted for a "Sorry" when Steve swallows it in another deep plunging kiss, and for a long sweeping moment Sam fills with nothing but sensation, the rush of flight, the blaze of heat, the press of Steve's chest and thighs and cock to his as Steve strokes them together and the streaming air croons around them.
Breathlessness breaks the kiss into shallower stretches between warm gasps, lips glancing wet across lips, and Sam absolutely can't keep from saying, "Well this is new, kinky and new." He may have dreamt of this, daydreamt it once or twice, but Steve grabbed hold and jumped right in.
Steve prods his shoulder, chuckling over his mouth, lubed hand working steadily all the while, dragging up pleasure stroke by stroke. "You complaining?"
"Not at all." Sam pushes up into the next kiss, grazing a tooth across Steve's plush lower lip, and the deep lilting groan he gets for it sears down his nerves, a heavy throb pooling behind his balls. Steve vibrates with tactile delight, louder on each breath, his trembling radiating through Sam's arms and shoulders, flanks and thighs.
Sam wants to lay Steve down on a fleecy cloud, strip all these fluttering clothes away and map each quivering muscle with his tongue, wants to carry Steve up to the golden sun he outshines and never come down again. He could stay in this moment forever, except there's no way he can last, not with Steve twisting his wrist like that, fingers rippling, not with Steve shuddering under his hands and moaning into his mouth. It's a race now, as they spiral inwards, the wind shrieking behind them, as Steve rocks into his strokes and tries a little tongue-wrestle, as Sam squeezes with all his strength till Steve's ribs creak and he concedes with a rising cry, shaking hard pulse by slick-sticky pulse.
Steve's mouth peels away from Sam's as he huffs into aftershocks, and Sam comes up gasping, "Baby, baby, just like that, damn, damn." Steve hisses, bites Sam's lip sharp-sweetly, and doesn't stop stroking, the wings beat like a hurricane as reality spins around Sam, ecstasy flaring through him hotter than the sunlight. Steve kisses him through it, hand sliding to a stop, thumb pressing just lightly enough to drag up shudder after crackling shudder until Sam's in more bits than a helicopter, all flying in loose formation, held together only by Steve. "Oh my fuck," Sam puffs over Steve's wide grin, hauling together enough presence of mind to spiral them into a stationary hover, letting the jets carry them for a bit as the wings fold loosely around them, as he catches his breath and rattles back together in Steve's arms.
"Mm, yeah," Steve agrees as Sam settles them into a comfortable air current, and they kiss and pant their way through putting themselves back together, as Steve wipes his sticky hand on Sam's jockeys-clad hip, gets pinched like he deserves and laughs as he fastens Sam's pants for him, then his own. Wrapping his arm back around Sam's waist, Steve lifts his head enough to say an earnest, "Thank you."
"Mmmph," Sam objects into the next kiss; when Steve lets him up he tries to glare, which doesn't work at all with Steve sleepy-eyed and glowing in his arms, but at least manages to point out, "You're the one who jumped me, up here and everything."
"Thanks for the opportunity," Steve answers, merrily mischievous, little gold sparks lighting his his evening blue eyes, and Sam can almost hear approving laughter on the breeze and just has to kiss Steve again. Steve kisses back lavishly but comes up still talking, not that Sam minds listening. "Mm, this is beautiful, you're gorgeous, I couldn't resist."
Sam's heart swells impossibly, barely caged by his ribs. "You sweet talker, you," he murmurs, and Steve grins and ducks his head, pressing his cheek to Sam's again. They're starting to cool off now, Sam's limbs aching deep inside the muscles, a sweet burn and a warning. "How about we get back to Avengers Tower and into a nice shower?"
"Think we can we use up all of Stark's hot water?" Steve asks with a warm little squeeze, and Sam laughs all the way back down through the clouds.
* *v* *
Pepper expected Tony to be in his lab, still pouting and trying to come up with an improved wing design; Sam had insisted on T'Challa's original so firmly and politely and with such a nice smile that Pepper, with years of Tony-handling to her experience, was quite impressed. Instead, she finds Tony sprawled in a deck chair on the roof, watching the sky through a massive camo-green set of binoculars. Or -- she looks again, and recognizes a set of infrared scopes, the bigger siblings of the goggles. She inhales to ask what he's doing, opening her mouth to ask where Steve went while Sam's testing out his rebuilt wings; Tony whistles sharply and mutters, "Get it Cap," and Pepper realizes the answer to both questions.
She has to admit, her "Tony," is rote reproof. She's too busy thinking along baser lines to really mean it.
Tony doesn't look down, being Tony. "Let me keep watching and I'll give you a turn in a minute."
"Thirty seconds," she bargains, because Steve and Sam are up in the sky together, which means the situation is somewhat urgent and probably incredibly hot.
"Time it," he agrees, distracted; she elbows him over and leans on him for a backrest, prepared to enforce the deal with an iron fist. Tony yields with relatively good grace, only a little whining and just one suggestion of "at the right angle, we could share," which Pepper ignores as she adjusts the scopes' focus.
And the view? Spectacular.