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Who| Julian Bradds and Sam Wilson
What| Julian tries to catch a goose, which doesn't go as planned. Sam to the rescue!
Where| By the pond
When| Week 1
Warnings/Notes| Injuries from geese? Will update if needed

The first time Julian had seen the geese out on the pond, they had honked angrily at him, and Julian had decided it was a good idea to leave them alone. But since then he’s tried catching rabbits, deer, quail, and they’ve all evaded him, too fast for him to catch. Julian’s not sure how he would even cook anything when he actually got it. He doesn’t even know how to make a fire. But he’s so hungry that his first priority is to just actually get something. At the very least he’s managed to find water to survive, but it’s been a while without food now, and the lack of sleep and temperature dropping really aren’t helping with things.

There’s a chance all of that might be making Julian go a little crazy, because when he approaches the pond again and sees the geese gathered in a big clump on the edge of it, he thinks it’s a good idea to just go for one. Geese waddle. They shouldn’t be too fast for him. And even if they fly away, there’s so many of them gathered all together that he thinks he’s bound to get at least one.

He sprints over, and the movement of it is enough to get the geese glaring at him, but even that doesn’t deter him from reaching for one when he gets closer. Some fly away, while most of them stay to nip at his outstretched arms, but he still somehow manages to get a hold of one. Except, the way he grabs it has the goose belly up, and it starts wiggling it’s body around, legs kicking, and wings outstretched and flapping so that they hit Julian in the face. The other geese have decided they don’t want to back down either, probably not seeing Julian as any sort of threat, and they surround Julian, biting at his legs between more angry honks.

“Okay! Fine, fine!” Julian doesn’t particularly like getting hit in the face anyway, and there was no way he was going to be able to keep his hold on the goose for long with it wiggling like that, so he lets the goose go in surrender, hoping that will be enough to appease the other geese. The geese seem set on attacking him now though, and Julian tries to break away, but with the way they’ve got him trapped in their goose circle it’s proving to be difficult to actually get out without tripping. And when one of them gives a particular hard bite to the back of his leg, his knees buckle and he falls to the ground.

The geese cover him, pecking, biting, and stepping all over him, and all Julian can do is cover his head with his hands and try to worm away. “Stop! Stop! I won’t eat you I swear! I love geese! Geese are my favorite animal!”

Julian’s just babbling at this point, shouting anything in the hopes that the geese will get off him. It’s probably not good to yell so loudly when there was a chance people who were interested in killing could be nearby, but Julian’s more worried about the geese at this point.

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When something causes the geese to all but riot, Sam notices. He'd come down to the pond just to hunt them, after all. Somethin's been causing them to be on edge since he got here just a little bit ago, though he hasn't figured out what, but those are definitely attack cries.

He's seen it before, when some idiot got too close to the geese back home and pissed them off somehow. It wasn't like it was a hard thing to do, really.

Sam can't see who - or what - has got the geese all riled up as he circles around to approach them, but he's pretty sure he recognizes that voice. Even if it isn't Julian, he'd come in to help anyway - partially because it'd be stupid not to take advantage of the situation. So far, the geese have been alluding his grasp, but with their focus on something else, it's actually pretty easy to catch one, get a good hold on it and snap its neck. He even manages to get a second one before they notice and he changes tactics.

He reaches down, grabbing a double fistful of the kid's windbreaker, and yanks. Sam's carried Steve Rogers with one arm before - for less than a minute, okay, but it counts - it's easy enough to pull Julian up and away from the geese. Especially since they're already starting to fly away, apparently feeling more threatened with two of them dead.

"What'd I warn you about with bird armies?" Sam asks, setting Julian back on his feet.

Between the honking and being trampled on, Julian doesn’t even know someone’s there until the geese start to fly off and he’s being lifted up and away. For a split second he’s worried he got himself stuck with something even worse than the geese, but when he sees it’s just Sam he lets out a quiet sigh of a relief, arms finally dropping away from his head.

When he’s back on his feet he brushes himself off, though that doesn’t really do much to get all the mud off. He notices the scarf and gloves he just got are ripped some too, and he feels like his whole body is going to be bruised, but at least he’s still alive, even if he went through all of that just to still be hungry. Sam’s words get an eyeroll, but it’s nice to have somewhat of a distraction from all of this, and despite everything it brings a weak smile to his face.

“I could have taken them,” he says, but quickly realizes that’s not even a remotely believable bluff, so he amends, “Well, I could have if they weren’t super geese or something.” He turns his head around for a brief moment to glare up at the geese he can still see flying away in the sky before he looks back at Sam. “Plus, I don’t have my powers. That put them at an unfair advantage.”

Sam’s automatically checking him over for injuries as Julian tries to brush the mud off, but it doesn’t look like he’s too worse for the wear. Except his clothes, which normally wouldn’t be that big of a deal - but in weather like this, especially when Sam’s betting it’s gonna get worse? Wet and muddy is not a great place to be.

That’s fixed easily enough, though, and Sam’s pretty content at getting two geese out of this, so he steps back with a grin.

“All geese are super geese, Simba, even I know not to get on their bad side. I’m guessing you were trying to grab one for dinner?” They probably wouldn’t have gotten so riled up if they hadn’t felt at least a little bit threatened.

Julian snorts. Of course that Simba name is going to follow him here too.

“Yes, I was. I haven’t eaten since the Crowning.” And considering the main dish had been bugs, Julian had pretty much only eaten marshmallows and cake. “Apparently the sponsors have decided good looks mean nothing,” Julian adds, grumbling. Despite how all he’s pretty much done is scowl and complain, he really did expect his looks to be enough for sponsors to at least send him some sort of food.

Julian huddles in on himself when the wind blows, though it doesn’t really do him much good with the state his clothes are in, and he shivers. “Are there any warm places here? Maybe somewhere hidden away with lots of cheesecakes stacked high. That would be great.”

The Simba nickname is pretty much going to follow him everywhere.

"Hey, you at least got warmer clothes, you must have done something right." He kind of thought as much, though. Sam shakes his head with a little smirk at Julian mentioning cheesecake, but with the way the kid's huddling in on himself and shivering, there's no way Sam's going to leave him on his own.

"The way I see it, you helped distract them, so one of those is yours." He nods towards the two geese. "Tell you what, you help me get some eggs to go with it, and then we can head back to where I'm camped out and we'll cook them up." By which he means, he's going to show Julian how to get eggs, because he has a feeling that's going to be the best way for the kid to get food on his own, and then he's going to make Julian help him get the geese ready, but same thing.

“I do lots of things right. I guess one of them had to be not too dumb to realize it.” Clearly the way to get lots of gifts from sponsors is to infer that most of them are dumb. Julian doesn’t seem to see the error of his ways, though, expression still sullen.

“Eggs and geese? Sounds good to me.” Yeah, what Julian got from that is ‘I follow Sam around and then he feeds me’, and while he’ll be in for a nice surprise later, right now it’s enough for Julian’s expression to brighten as he shuffles closer to Sam. “But let’s find the eggs quickly so we can eat sooner.”

Oh hell, this kid is even worse at this getting sponsors thing than Sam is. “There you go, make sure everyone knows that they’d have to be stupid not to sponsor you.”

Natasha’d probably do a way better job of trying to turn that around, but that’s all Sam’s got. Once they’re out of the arena, they’re definitely going to have to have a talk.

Sam chuckles a little at Julian’s comment about doing it quicker, crouching down to bundle up the geese in one of his recycled parachutes, tying it together so he can sling it over his shoulder. “Fortunately, where the geese are, their eggs are probably close by. Come on, I’ll show you how to track them.”

And he does, though he’s not sure how much Julian’s paying attention, he does his best to make it seem interesting. Make a competition out of who can spot the signs first, letting the kid win a few times, until finally they’ve found a nest.

“You wanna be a distraction, or do you want to grab eggs?”

For the most part, Julian only pays half-attention to what Sam is saying about tracking geese, too distracted by how hungry and tired he is to devote his full focus. But it’s better than the zero attention he would have normally given egg hunting in pretty much any other situation than the Arena, and his attention slowly grows more and more as Sam lets him win, a little pleased smile on his face everytime he does.

The question makes Julian wrinkle his nose though, as neither of those options sound incredibly appealing. He didn’t exactly have fun the last time he was a distraction, even if Julian hadn’t meant it to be a distraction at the time, and he’s pretty sure he’d end up breaking the eggs if he tried to grab them. The risk of losing potential food ends up being the worst of the two as far as Julian is concerned, so he says, a bit reluctantly, “I’ll be a distraction. What should I do? Start clapping? That’s distracting, right?”

Don't worry, Julian. There'll be a repeat of all of this, once Julian's fed and had some sleep. And probably more, because Sam's pretty sure the kid's defenseless without his powers, and he can't just leave him like that. He doesn't mind showing him this kind of stuff - it reminds him of his own survival training, back in the pipeline. Sam just wishes it was under different circumstances.

At least making it a game seems to be working, and Sam claps him on the shoulder and tells him he's doing pretty damn good, for his first time.

He chuckles a little at the face Julian's making, but nods when he picks one. "That's definitely distracting. Just don't do it near me, man, we don't want to distract them right to me. Throw a couple of rocks in the reeds, too, that'll probably startle them."

Julian tenses a little when Sam claps him on the shoulder, staring down at in confusion. It’s something his dad has done, awkwardly, a couple of times, but other than that it’s not a particularly familiar gesture. The confusion dies away, replaced by a larger smile this time, one that actually shows teeth, but Julian quickly tries to hide it by looking in the other direction under the guise of keeping a lookout.

“Rocks. Clapping. Okay. Just don’t let the geese eat me.” Julian says, looking hesitant to possibly be invoking the wrath of geese again, but after picking up a few nearby rocks he walks away until he’s a good enough distance from Sam and then gets to work being a distraction. Between the rock throwing, clapping, and the stomping Julian decides to add in, they should be heading in his direction.

Sam’s dealt with way too many people who are uncomfortable with or otherwise unused to friendly gestures like that to be surprised at the confusion, but it is something that he notes away. Between Julian’s attitude about things, what he’s told him about back home, and the way he reacts to things like that - especially that smile once he gets past the confusion - Sam’s starting to paint a picture of his home life.

And he also makes a note to keep right on doing stuff like that.

“I got your back,” he promises before Julian heads out.

Once the geese are distracted, it takes less than thirty seconds for Sam to swoop in and steal some of their eggs. He doesn’t get them all, because he’s going for in and out rather than completion, but he has enough.

Then he circles back around, calling to Julian.

Julian’s pretty sure he can hear the rustling of geese waddling towards him, but thankfully none of them manage to get near him within such a short time. As soon as Sam calls out, Julian’s jogging back, eyes already focused on the eggs Sam’s holding.

“Now we can eat, right?” He asks, excitement in his voice, the instant he stops in front of Sam, but he doesn’t wait for an answer before he’s heading in the other direction. “Let’s go to your camp.”

Then, seeming to realize he doesn’t know where Sam’s camp is, he turns abruptly back around, acting as if nothing had happened, and waits for Sam to lead the way. That is, unless Sam says they have to do something else first, but that may crush all of Julian’s excitement.

When Julian comes back, Sam’s wrapping the eggs carefully in one of the silvery parachutes he’d kept, just in case.

He chuckles when Julian starts wandering off in the wrong direction, and straightens, setting the bundle of eggs down in Julian’s arms. “Yeah, it’s time to eat now. Well. Cooking first, then eating.”

Sam scoops up the two geese he’d killed and tied together, slinging them over one shoulder as he casually tosses his other arm around Julian’s shoulder, keeping it there as he starts them moving. “I’m not the only one using the cave where I’m camped out, as a warning. But no one there is going to hurt you, you can stay there as long as you like.”

“Great. I like eating.” Julian’s instinct is to want to hold onto the eggs as tightly as possible for fear that he might drop them, but he doesn’t want to crack them either, so he wills himself to hold them in his arms as gently as he can.

Julian doesn’t tense up as much this time when Sam slings an arm over his shoulder, but he does look extra baffled as to why it’s being kept there. He raises one shoulder like he’s about to shrug it off, but he decides against it, letting Sam keep it there with a small, slightly unsure smile as he goes where Sam leads.

“All right.” Julian doesn’t really trust any of these other people that are going to be in cave, but he does trust Sam. And regardless, his chances are much better in the cave than they would be outside on his own, even if Julian would rather deny it. “No one snores, do they? I don’t want anyone interrupting my beauty sleep.” And while Julian’s prissy enough to at least be partially serious, for the most part he’s only joking this time.

“I’ve noticed,” he teases.

It’s getting kept there because Sam likes the kid, and because it doesn’t seem like Julian’s had a lot of this kind of attention. Everyone needs someone they can goof around with and give easy, comfortable displays of affection. Better get used to it, Julian.

He chuckles at Julian’s joke, shaking his head. “Nah, I’m pretty sure that’s not something you’re going to have to worry about.” If only because some of them didn’t sleep deep enough - or often enough - in the arena for snoring to be a problem. “Just, uh, don’t try to sneak up on Bucky. Or Natasha or Clint. And don’t try to hand anything to Tony. Steve’s an overgrown puppy, you’ll be fine with him. Bruce pretty much keeps to himself, and Darcy’s a firecracker but - actually, you’ll probably recognize Darcy, she’s in your district.”

Julian kind of feels like he should be taking notes, a little alarmed that this list of advice isn’t going to stop. He’s normally used to keeping track of one or two people, not a handful of them. And he definitely hasn’t had to really worry about how to avoid upsetting people either. For a moment he goes quiet, overwhelmed but not wanting to show it, but he probably gives it away with how his shoulders go tense under Sam’s arm again.

“No sneaking. No… handing anything.” That last one makes him a bit skeptical and he raises an eyebrow at Sam. The people in this cave are starting to sound a little weird. “So as long as I don’t do either of those I’ll be okay?”

“Yes, well, it is hard not to recognize someone when you share a living room with them. And a bathroom. And a kitchen.” There’s still some bitterness in Julian’s voice, but it’s weak. Julian will jump at the chance to complain about whatever he can, but when he’s in the Arena the living conditions in the Capitol seem like the least of his concerns.

Yeah, Sam definitely notices it, and feels a little bad for overwhelming the kid. He’d just meant to mention the sneaking, and maybe Tony’s thing about being handed stuff, but he’d gotten a little carried away.

Hey, Sam’s friends are not a little weird. They’re… kind of a lot weird, actually. “You’ll be fine,” he confirms, ruffling Julian’s hair a little. “Most of them are superheroes, you got nothing to worry about. They’re good people, just a little tense in here.”

He chuckles a little at Julian’s comment about sharing. “Uh-huh. Bet you’re wishing for that bathroom and kitchen right about now, sharing or not.”

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