RioriSparrow
Sam Wilson finally has the shield. What he doesn't have is any idea how much heavier it would feel once the world decided the title Captain America belonged to him.
Months after taking up the mantle, Sam is pulled into a case involving altered shipping manifests, stolen intelligence, and a shadow network trading secrets instead of money. The deeper he digs, the more the investigation begins to intersect with the people already circling his life, including the person known as the Power Broker.
And then there's Special Agent Evelyn Flores. Their paths have crossed before.
Years ago, when Sam was still the Falcon and Evelyn was finding her place in the intelligence world, they existed in the same orbit without ever truly knowing each other. Different agencies. Different missions. Different lives.
Now they're on the same side of the table. At least, for the moment.
Evelyn has spent years learning to read people, and Sam has always been exceptionally good at reading patterns. Together, they might be exactly what this investigation needs.
But as secrets begin surfacing and the line between ally and threat becomes harder to see, the politics of being a leader takes it's toll, Sam finds himself facing a different kind of challenge.
Because being Captain America means carrying the expectations of millions. Being Sam Wilson means figuring out what parts of himself he refuses to lose beneath the weight. In the midst of the chaos when the mission finally winds down, months later he gets told. "You're so caught up in the mantle, you now make Bucky look like a social butterfly." by his cousin and she suggests a blind date. Just one.
And somewhere between federal investigations, old acquaintances, impossible secrets, and a connection neither of them expected...Evelyn re-enters his life and starts seeing the man behind the shield. (Sam Wilsonx original character)
**Sometimes the hardest thing to carry isn't the shield. It's everything that comes with it.**