A Family of Flaws

Chapter Four; Meeting The Masked Spider

*Sam's POV*

This had to be a dream. Sam had been waiting for this moment his entire life. Reading comics, watching the motivational videos, all but worshipping the ground Captain America walked upon. And now he got to go on a mission with him. Yeah, he was totally dreaming.

They had arranged to start patrolling Spider-Man's usual areas every night until they ran into the arachnid, but for the past two days he had been avoiding them completely. Whether he was doing it on purpose or not, it was a mystery.

He was also completely off his game as of the past few days. Before they had gone out to start patrolling, Tony had pulled the team together and shown them the recent news reports about Spider-Man. He was being completely chaotic and sloppy compared to usual.

Sure, the dude wasn't the best fighter and he didn't seem to have a solid technique or anything, but he could still land a solid punch. Sam didn't doubt he could hold his own against an Avenger. Now that doesn't mean he would win, far from it actually, but he would be fairly well off compared to many other villains who challenged the Avengers.

Sam had almost been worried for the upcoming hero. Most of the other Avengers saw him as more of a shady, vigilante sort of person but Sam just saw him as someone using their abilities for the better. Of course, he had his suspicions and he had been worried that he might be lying about his true goals. But he wasn't trying to hurt anyone, quite the opposite actually, and he did a pretty good job at it.

His performance went down, the reporters also said his usually chatty personality (along with his corny jokes) had all but vanished as of recently. Not completely, but he was much less flashy and talkative and more business, even if he was totally getting his ass handed to him because of his newfound change.

So Sam was worried. He didn't know Spider-Man and Sam wasn't very popular yet, so he had no idea if the man himself knew who Sam was, but nobody just changed out of nowhere unless something was wrong. But he couldn't show that right now. Right now, he was Falcon. And Falcon was on a mission with Captain America to find Spider-Man and finally talk to him about being an ally of the Avengers.

  "Falcon. Meet me at the corner of the street—" Cap's voice cut through the comms, slightly crackly, but as strong as ever. "Quick! I see Spider-Man!" Sam was running across the roof he was currently on as fast as he could before Cap could finish his sentence.

  "I'm on my way, Cap!" Falcon shouted back, trying to bite back his excitement as he jumped off the corner of the roof and let his wings bring him to the ground softly. He landed beside Cap, who was running along the sidewalk, and without missing a beat, rolled into a running position beside him.

  "Where is—" Before Sam could finish his question, he caught sight of the spider swinging from the building above them to the next one across the street and then back to the other side of the street, zig-zagging from building to building. "How do we get his attention?"

  Cap pushed ahead, running faster. "Like this!" And he threw his shield as hard as he could, making the circular device soar through the air where it hit the building in front of Spider-Man and came rushing back to meet Cap's awaiting hand.

  Sam laughed, trying to stop it from sounding too airy as his lungs heaved from the effort of keeping up with Cap. "Awesome!" He called out, managing to come to a stop beside Captain America without falling over or colliding with the man.

  Thankfully, Cap's little stunt did the trick and Spider-Man swung to the top of the building he was currently swinging from and looked around warily, searching for the source of the distraction. When the white eyes of his mask landed on them, his shoulders tensed and he seemed ready to bolt.