No Light, No Light

He had a perfect view of the setting sun. The sky painted orange and gold. The white clouds like whisps of cotton candy. Sam had the windows of his truck rolled down. The late autumn breeze blew dried leaves down the sidewalk. The world was quiet. Sam could sit and think. But the more he sat and the more he thought, the hotter the coals of fury burned in his gut. There was a fire in his blood that no amount of picture perfect sunsets could soothe. He was angry. And he was allowed to be angry. It was part of the human condition. Happiness. Sadness. Anger.

But this wasn't the run of the mill, car got dinged in the parking lot, lost my wallet, dropped my phone in the toilet brand of anger. No, this was a burn the world to ashes degree of fury that left Sam's hands shaking. He wanted to punch things. He wanted to punch people. And not in the Captain America saving the day kind of way. Sam wanted to feel bones break beneath his fingers. He wanted to drive his thumbs into the eye sockets of the scum of the Earth. The hurtful and the hateful. The ones that kept their boots on folks' necks, just because they could. Sam wanted to feel their blood drip down his fingers. Just because he could. He wanted to smell the copper in the air. He wanted to hear their pleas for mercy, delivered through shattered teeth, knowing there would be none shown.

Except he couldn't. That wasn't the kind of guy Sam Wilson was. He wasn't allowed to be angry. At least, not that particular flavor of angry. It went beyond avoiding the disgusting stereotype of the Angry Black Man. Sam was a symbol now. He stood for something. Maybe not that hokey version of Truth, Justice, and the American Way. Sam believed that there was always a Better Way. It might not have been easier. In fact, it was oftentimes harder but it served the greater good.

Right now, Sam didn't give a flying fuck about good, greater or otherwise. The rage inside him had been growing, piece by piece, pebble by pebble, into a volcano. The pressure inside him threatening an eruption of Vesuvius proportions. He'd been ignoring it for too long. Because Sam hated feeling this way. He hated knowing he possessed such vile, vitriolic wrath. For the countless injustices, both personal and worldwide. He had lost so much. Perhaps no more than anyone else. And God knew Sam had plenty of blessings to count. He had his health. He had his family. He had a roof over his head and food to put in his belly and a bed to lay in tonight. But he still felt like screaming some days. He felt like putting his fists through something until the pain on the outside matched his pain on the inside.

Suppressing the rage only worked for so long. It was a short-term remedy. If Sam didn't acknowledge it, then it wasn't there and he could go on being the laid-back dude with the easy smile who did his best to see the best in people.

The bill came due. Like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, the rage would not be ignored any longer. It crafted a red haze across his vision. It clouded out all reasonable, rational thought, demanding satisfaction.

Sam didn't want to do it. He didn't want to give into this... weakness. And he didn't want to ask Bucky... It was too much. Even though they had talked about it and gone through it a handful of times before, it broke Sam's heart every time. If there was one person in the whole wide world, in the entire universe, that he never wanted to hurt, it was Bucky. That man had been through so much, had so much horrendous shit done to him that Sam couldn't bring himself to being just another inflictor of pain.

Even though Bucky wanted to do it. It was his choice and he made it freely. Sam need only ask.

And it didn't make Sam any less of a good man for asking. There was no moral judgment when he finally gave in to the red haze. This was not a failing of Sam's character. Everybody had a little bit of darkness in them. Bucky, of all people, encouraged Sam to let it out in a healthy way. By taking it out on him.