[ that is the complicated truth, isn't it? that even if they knew how to get home, even if there was a way for them to be able to get back to their timelines, the reality is knowing that back home - back with sarah, and his nephews, and his life, steve is not there. steve will not be there, except in name, in a reputation that sam will step into every time he puts on that suit and picks up that shield.
and as the decades have gone on, as they've found themselves here for far longer than sam was even alive, that steadfast hope to return home has... well. it hasn't waned, exactly, but sam has noticed how the priorities of it have started to shift. it's started to become less and less important they found their way home, and more and more important that this home worked. that the people, the other summoned, were safe- or as safe as they could be allowed.
that confidence, this place, is what trembles within sam now. what he feels the need to hold through, to grit his teeth and hold steady. but he can see it in steve even now, that where normally sam could be steady for them both, steve won't lean fully into it. can't, with how sam goes cold and then warm again, is solid and then not. he can see steve try, to lean in and then to settle back. ]
We will find it. I'm not losing myself to this- and I always come back. Back to you. [ he clenches his own jaw, then, not pulling away but sitting back. he knows what steve is suggesting, knows what the easiest answer here would be, but he- he can't.
he can't. ] I'm not made to be a god, Steve. You know that.
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and as the decades have gone on, as they've found themselves here for far longer than sam was even alive, that steadfast hope to return home has... well. it hasn't waned, exactly, but sam has noticed how the priorities of it have started to shift. it's started to become less and less important they found their way home, and more and more important that this home worked. that the people, the other summoned, were safe- or as safe as they could be allowed.
that confidence, this place, is what trembles within sam now. what he feels the need to hold through, to grit his teeth and hold steady. but he can see it in steve even now, that where normally sam could be steady for them both, steve won't lean fully into it. can't, with how sam goes cold and then warm again, is solid and then not. he can see steve try, to lean in and then to settle back. ]
We will find it. I'm not losing myself to this- and I always come back. Back to you. [ he clenches his own jaw, then, not pulling away but sitting back. he knows what steve is suggesting, knows what the easiest answer here would be, but he- he can't.
he can't. ] I'm not made to be a god, Steve. You know that.