Sam looked at the compound research assistant in some measure of disgust, unable to contain his feelings regarding what sat in front of him. On a lab table, lay a suit. Specifically, a Falcon suit. A red, white and blue Falcon suit. The Captain America shield lay at the suit's feet, but frankly, that was the most subtle thing about the whole…thing. A bright blue body suit with the hardened padding painted in the red and white features was an affront to Sam's eyes. Even the wings were painted.

"Hell no, I'm not wearing that. Give me my old suit back."

"Mr. Wilson, as the new Captain America, you really should be…" The assistant, who's name Sam had forgotten upon seeing the suit, tried to insist.

"Nuh-uh. It looks like something out of that Sky High movie that came out years ago. It looks ridiculous."

"What does?" Bucky entered the room, and his eyes immediately locked onto the suit. It was hard to miss. He started cackling, and bent over, tears forming in the corners of his eyes. "What…is…that?" He huffed out between the laughter.

Sam scowled. "It's my new suit. I did not approve this."

Bucky actually collapsed to the floor, his mirth interrupting the other research assistants. "You have to wear that!" Bucky called out, his hand clutched over his heart.

"No way. It looks stupid!" Sam retorted.

Bucky emitted another guffaw. "I know! That's why you have to wear it!"

Sam shot another scowl towards the Winter Soldier. "I hate you!" Sam muttered.

Finally, Bucky picked himself up off of the floor, and dusted himself off. "I know. You're still gonna wear that though."

Sam shook his head, and said "Not a chance."

Two days later, Sam prayed that the quinjet would be shot down. The suit was undergoing some design revisions, but in the meantime, the new color scheme would have to stick, because they had a mission.

Bucky was finishing strapping on his new arm shields. "Not a chance, huh?" The older man smirked, looking Sam up and down.

Sam groaned. "Shut up." When Clint took a look at the suit the day before, he practically almost sent himself into cardiac arrest from laughing so hard, and a leaked picture of the suit had made it to social media, where the internet had pulled out all the stops on roasting the suit.

Sam's particular favorite comment was one where someone had said that it looks like the American flag had vomited on the suit, because that was entirely accurate.

Bucky's new suit, on the other hand, was much subtler. Looking more like the stealth suit that Steve had worn when Hydra had been exposed, the black bodysuit was accented with grey and red, and the features of the Winter Soldier, including the star emblem and the lower face mask were included.

The pilot's voice then came over the PA system. "Heads up, we're coming over the drop point. You guys might want to get into positions."

The mission was fairly simple. Reports of wormholes, and strangely dressed beings popping through were sprinkled across the Midwest, and farmers were dealing with the property damage and theft they caused. The reason the Avengers were being called in though was because of the weaponry that some of the individuals carried, clearly not from Earth.

Thor had identified that some of the individuals might've been from Saakar, which means that the aliens were the Avenger's problem. Steven Strange and Dr. Jane Foster had been able to pick up a pattern in the wormholes, and they were anticipating another one opening in just 10 minutes.

Bucky positioned himself towards the aft of the quinjet, and the cargo door began to open. When the light signaling the okay to drop switched to green, Bucky took a running jump out of the plane.

Before Sam could follow him out of the plane, the pilot decided to get cocky. "Hey Wilson, shall I say the Pledge of Allegiance before you go?"

Sam grumbled to himself, before he too jumped off the quinjet. The pilot's laughter over the PA system could be heard for a moment, and then the wind rushing through Sam's ears drowned out everything else. Bucky was a few yards below Sam, his body flattened out, his limbs spread out.

Sam maneuvered his body into a similar position, and tapped the comm in his ear, before saying "Is this a bad time to do a comms check?"

Bucky tapped his own comm, and said "Nope. Not like we should've done that BEFORE jumping out of the plane."

Sam chuckled. "So did Princess Shuri have a say in your suit design? I'm noticing the Wakandan shields there, and I thought I'd ask."

"I don't know. But I'm sure she definitely didn't have a say in yours, you Star Spangled-looking starfish."

Sam swore in protest, before a recording of Steve's voice played over both of their comms. "Language."

"What the…" Bucky started to say.

"Are you two idiots done?" Nick Fury's voice sounded over the comms.

"Director Fury. Fancy meeting you here." Sam quipped in surprise.

Bucky noted the name, but remained silent.

Director Fury chuckled. "Barton wasn't kidding about that suit of yours Wilson. It does look like a Transformer."

Sam groaned, adding another horrible description to the growing list in his head. "What can we do for you Director Fury?"

"I'm running backup on this mission, while Danvers is off world. You two need to pull your chutes in a second."

"Not wearing chutes sir." Barnes finally said.

"WHA…" Fury yelled out before cutting himself off.

"Don't worry Director." Sam reassured. "I'm gonna catch his dumb ass."

Sam couldn't see the older man, but he knew that Fury was raising an eyebrow. "You better. I don't want to have to explain to Rodgers when I get to wherever I'm going why his best friend got there first."

Bucky chuckled. "You do know that Steve was famous for jumping out of planes without a parachute too right?"

"Yeah, but I could yell at his stupid ass, since the motherfucker has a habit of coming back from the dead. You on the other hand, I thought had more common sense."

Sam laughed at Bucky's offended gasp. "I think, Director, that the way that Spiderman has described the Avengers, as operating in the field with a limited number of collective braincells. And on a good day, neither Barnes nor Rodgers had one."

Fury snorted. "And who did have the braincells Wilson. You?"

"Nope," Sam said cheerfully. "Romanoff kept the braincells. Occassionally Stark had one or two, and Steve got one when he needed to say something patriotic, but the rest of us? Nah."

"You shouldn't talk about saying patriotic things." Bucky shot out.

Sam was confused. "Why's that?"

"Because everything you say in that suit is patriotic, no matter what you say."

If he could, Sam would have punched Barnes at that point. "I'm really tempted to just let him become a human pancake."

"Get over it. Wilson, move into position to catch Barnes. I don't want more paperwork to do today."

Sam began to swoop down, and grabbed the convenient handle on the back of Bucky's suit, before switching his wing thrusters into reverse, and both of their bodies snapped into a vertical position, hovering a couple feet off the ground. Sam let go as soon as momentum had taken it's course, and Bucky dropped into a crouching position. Sam folded his wings away and he landed on his feet.

The two Avengers surveyed the surrounding area, the farmland around them providing miles of clean lines of sight in all directions. Sam checked the HUD display on his wrist, confirming that they were in the right place, before Bucky elbowed Sam. He looked up to see an individual standing in front of them, that hadn't been there a moment ago.

Loki the God of Mischief, who had finally popped into the timeline in which Stark and his later self had been apart of, stood there, the Tesseract still in hand. He started at the Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and cleared his throat.

"Oh goodie. Just who I was looking for." Sam and Bucky both exchanged a look, thinking "This can't be good."