milliways_bar | (no subject)

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sam wilson

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Sam is sitting by one of the TVs which is playing a short, infomercial type of show on a loop. There's a guy in a red, white, and blue suit which might be a uniform if you are imaginative, and he's challenging the viewer to try the Captain America's Fitness Challenge*.

Sam might be laughing; at the very least he's grinning broadly. As always though, he's open for conversation.

*Link goes to a -1mb gif from the Spider-Man: Homecoming trailer.

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Steve, fresh from a run around the lake, pauses on his way to the bar for water and groans.

"Oh, boy, Sam."

At least it's not the serial from 1943.

"Hold on a sec, I gotten get this down," Sam says while miming writing down how many crunches the challenge asks for. "Can't disappoint Captain America now can I?"

"Fifty," Steve says with a sigh. "Fifty crunches, fifty pull-ups, fifty push-ups. Run a mile in under ten minutes. Climb a fifteen-foot rope.

"It kinda makes me feel like a fraud, you know. I didn't get this way by exercising."

Sam grabs the remote and turns off the video. Razzing is only good while the other person is amused as well.

"I take it this wasn't your idea then?"

"Not really," Steve says. "I agreed to it, of course. It was presented to me as a way to get kids exercising more, but sometimes I worry it's just more pressure on kids that are under a lot of pressure already.

"We didn't exercise in school when I was a boy," he adds. "We just played outside. Well, I didn't, so much." Another reason why he feels weird about it. He knows the feeling of not being able to keep up with his playmates all too well.

"Maybe they should've had Thor...nah, then high school kids would have even more of a complex from comparing themselves to him."

"Did you guys do recess? Or have team sports?"

"Recess," Steve says. "No organized sports, but we'd play stickball and kick-the-can after school, that kind of thing. Nobody had the money for things like uniforms."

"Right. Sorry, I keep thinking you only go as far back of WW2."

"Was football or basketball big yet?"

"Basketball," Steve says, "if you belonged to a gym that had a court. Football just starting to get big when I was a kid. Sometimes you could hear a game on the radio--but we were bigger fans of baseball. Bucky and I would see the Dodgers every chance we got."

"The great American game."

Sam pauses to tap on the Bar for a few seconds as an idea occurs to him. Looking at it a few different ways, he finally says, "You know, you could do another one of these, but make it your own way. With social media, you could do it all on your own and talk about anything you think the kids might need to know or understand. This," he pauses to toss a thumb at the TV, "had government marketing all over it, but something like it could be a real help. Doesn't have to be about fitness either."

Steve nods slowly, looking thoughtful. "Like FDR's fireside chats, only video or something."

"Sure," Sam agrees, though he has only the vaguest idea what the fireside chats were like. "One word of warning though, don't read any comments people leave for you. Some will be good, great eve, but the internet tends to bring out the worst in folks. At the very least, you might get folks who want to argue and they're just in it to win, no matter how they do it."

And yes, Sam does realize he just warned Steve not to engage with bullies. He had to try.

Too late. Steve already Has Plans, and he raises an eyebrow at Sam.

"If I don't read the comments, how will I know what the kids need to talk about?"

"Well," Sam says, drawing out the L to buy some time. "Two things are likely to get in the way. You are a famous person. You may get millions of people following you, people who will make comments on the stuff you post. Not all of it will be directed to you, and a lot of it might be directed at you without the expectation that you would reply."

"The other thing is people who use the anonymity of the internet to...well, be asses will try and dominate the conversation. Chances are just so they could say the argued with Captain America and won or something."

"I got mooned and called Twinkletoes when I was in the USO," Steve says wryly. "I think I can handle a few jackasses with attitude.

"And we'll see if there's anything to argue about. The way I see it, it'll need to be kind of a conversation anyway. If people want to argue, I'll just have to respond." He grins. "In the video."

"OK. Just don't say I didn't warn you." He should've know Steve wouldn't back down but had to try. "Honestly, it might do some good. Facing the trolls, I mean. Not a lot is done online right now."

Sam spares a thought for doxing, but decides anything that isn't public is likely so far behind a Stark or SHIELD firewall that Nick Fury is likely the only person who knows about it.

"I consider myself warned," Steve says, as amused as he is touched.

"There's a whole movement about standing up to bullies, isn't there? At the very least I can take some about that, or at least start there."

He thinks for a moment, then says, "I wrote a little book about Bucky and me when we were kids. It's going to be published. I've been thinking about who to donate the profits too--the USO, and some asthma research foundations, to start with. Do you know of a good anti-bullying organization I could donate to, too?"

Sam exhales in thought.

"Not off the top of my head, but I'll get you a list. Good for you by the way." Sam's happy to hear Steve doing something for himself that's not saving the world.

"Thanks," Steve says to both sentiments. "Maybe the next one will be about trolls."

The screen is something familiar and people watching tend to be talkative and not looking for trouble.

He keeps his hands near his hips in case and watches the costumed man, "Is he a hero somewhere?"

Sam nods and glances over, taking in the other man's clothes and such.

"In my world. He is usually fighting alien invaders or terrorists, not telling kids to do pushups."

"But he's enough of a hero that they make him be inspiring?"

He's seen holovids like that from the Empire, some of the Rebellion do their own. Most of the Starfighter ones are too dirty to be shared but they're good for a laugh. This man obviously doesn't know him and someone dressed like that would be known if he was in the galaxy and Cassian relaxes slightly.

Sam looks at the screen and smiles in amusement again. He catches what the fellow's is really asking, but the context is still amusing.

"Oh, in a lot of ways, yes. In this instance, I think it's more forced by some PR folks trying to use him to push an agenda. I don't know how they ever got him to agree to it." Sam is pretty sure it must have been before Steve acclimated to his new time, before his famous stubbornness came out.

"He doesn't like doing what he's ordered?" That can be tricky when someone's a hero but also those can be the ones who find ways others don't.

Sam ponders the question for a moment.

"I think he likes the idea of helping kids. I don't think he likes this method and realizes it isn't like to help."

"I guess they didn't give him a lot of choices in it."

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