Michael had not been used to having to walk long distances in an exterior environment to go from her living quarters to her work post, nor had she been used to having to cook or prepare breakfast instead of just speaking it into existence from a replicator. This had been another adjustment she had had to make but sometimes she still forgot things, or had too much to carry in a bag or coat (because you needed more contingency items when you didn’t live close to work and brought work home regardless) and insisted on not stopping her trek to deal with it for fear of being late due to extra time cooking a balanced breakfast. It meant dropping things once in a while, like today, and it meant not noticing they had fallen.
After years of military life and after his time as an Avenger, Sam had gotten used to picking up even the smallest changes in his environment. He was always on guard, always aware. It likely would’ve been exhausting for some people, and Sam suspected that there was plenty that Claire or Neal could have analyzed in his inability to relax, but Sam knew that the way he operated now was a lot different than right after he returned from the tour that killed Riley. He wasn’t jumpy anymore. He was just observant.
Enough so that he saw something fall from the woman’s belongings, when other people might have overlooked it or not even paid enough attention to it, too absorbed in their phones. “Ma’am?” he called out as he bent to retrieve her keycard, his voice startling himself even though he’d already heard it that morning. He still sounded remarkably like Elmo.
“Ma’am?” he tried again. “You dropped something.”
Hearing the voice, Michael’s instinct was to look down, expecting a small child to be addressing her. She looked around herself unable to find said child, and when it became clear that instead of a child it was a man much taller than her who was addressing her, Michael’s efforts to keep the amusement from truly showing in her face caused her to widen her eyes while pressing her lips together.
“Hmmm? Yes? Oh,” she coughed, letting herself grin in the process. “Thank- thank you.”
“Yeah yeah,” Sam muttered, an expression of mild exasperation on his face, “I sound like a higher-pitched Elmo.” It was going to be a really, really long day if it lasted any longer. “I usually sound like a regular human man.” It was a little funny, though, he had to admit. “Although I understand if that’s hard to believe, considering.”
Michael blinked. “What’s an elmo?” she asked first of all, because context was important and in this case she had none. Then her smile turned sheepish and she lowered her gaze. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t laugh, I interact with many species with many different voice pitches and it should not provide humor at this point. But I confess I was wholly imagining an adorable child until I saw you. This is another one of Atlantis’ tricks?”
“Hold up.” Instead of answering her last question, Sam held up a hand. “You don’t know who Elmo is?” It shouldn’t have been too much of a surprise, really, considering how many people were from entirely different worlds from his own or were from decades in the past (or future, probably). But he was tickled to discover that she didn’t know -- and that he could illuminate her. “Oh, man, you’re missing out. He’s a red puppet on a children’s television show.”
Instead of confirming the obvious lack of knowledge as to this Elmo person, Michael shrugged sheepishly. That should tell him all he needed to know. The answer was a tad disconcerting.
"A red puppet. Right. And it sounds like you? It must be quite something for you to like it so much even as an adult. Does it teach them things?"
“Oh yeah.” At that point, Sam was practically gushing — which he knew must have sounded even more bizarre. “Sesame Street was huge. Public television, so it was all educational. Taught kids to read, their colors, how to share, how to be empathetic. Especially of people who were different from you.” It’d been instrumental in his own childhood.
“I’m Sam Wilson, by the way.” He held out a hand in greeting.
Sam wasn't wrong - it all sounded much more bizarre coming from such a voice, but she tried not to be unkind. His enthusiasm reminded her of Tilly, although he was still a lot calmer despite the voice. Michael smiled fondly at the idea of such a service provided to children. "That sounds like a great initiative. I had educational programs directed at children, but never that particular one. Never with so much levity either."
Vulcans did not do levity, much less in education, she reasoned. Michael took Sam's hand in hers with the same fond smile. "Michael Burnham. Thank you for my keycard Sam, it's good to meet you."
“You, too.”
He didn’t recognize her right off the bat, which was honestly something of a relief. Sam was tired of trying to navigate the weirdness of knowing who someone was from reading a book or from watching a movie with them in it.
“You heading into base?” he asked.
“I am.” Michael smiled. She stood there a second before remembering that when someone asked like this it generally meant they had a mind to walk together because they were likely going the same way. Walking separately in the same direction would have been awkward. “Want to walk together?”
“Might as well,” Sam answered with a laugh that came out sounding more like a giggle in his current voice. “Or I could hang a few steps back in case you drop something again.” But he took a few steps in the direction of the base anyway, assuming she’d do the same.
Would it be more weird to make small talk or to stay silent? he wondered. Sam wasn’t exactly the type to shut up in situations like this one, funny voice or not. After a moment, he settled on small talk, mostly because not talking was making his palms itch. “So where abouts are you from?”
Michael gave a little laugh at the joke, shaking her head, and joined Sam on the walk. “No need, one save is enough.”
Sam’s question, while simple in and of itself, was much less so when one considered that people here came from different universes and timelines altogether. Michael furrowed her brow, deciding on how to most concisely relay the answer to his question. “Earth, originally. But I haven’t been in a long while. Since around 2230, give or take. I guess if not from where I was born, the answer would be Vulcan. What about you?”
Sam blinked a few times. Did she say Vulcan, the year 2230? “No shit,” he murmured, amazed. Vulcan. That, he recognized. He was no expert, but he knew enough about Star Trek to be impressed.
“Earth,” was his answer, but the year took a little bit more time to sort out. Sam had still been trying to wrap his head around the five years he’d missed when he’d gotten sucked into Atlantis. “2023. But I missed a few years in there.”
Michael nodded, smiling. He seemed to recognize the place, but she wasn’t exactly keen on rehashing it, having only mentioned Vulcan for the sake of honesty. “You missed time? What happened?”
“We, ah... “ Sam rubbed a hand over his head. He was used to people either knowing or just not asking, though in retrospect, they might not have asked because he’d been playing it close to his chest ever since he’d arrived in Atlantis. It’d been the safer choice when he hadn’t known how much everyone else knew. “Half of all life forms in the universe died. This megalomaniac called Thanos got ahold of a handful of stones containing incredible amounts of power, and he was able to just snap his fingers, and poof. Disintegrated. Took five years for my friends to bring us all back.”
Taken aback by Sam’s explanation of what had happened to him, Michael frowned deeply. “I am sorry. Extinction, even if halfway, is never easy to stomach. Especially at the hands of a tangible enemy.” But she was now curious. “How did they manage to bring everyone back? If you don’t mind talking about it, that is. I’d like to hear.”
“I know.” Sam sighed. “I think … it was meant to even things out. Reset the universe. Trouble is that when you exterminate half of the life… you exterminate insects that help the soil, bees to pollinate plants. From what I heard, it changed everything.”
The getting-everyone-back story was complicated. Even though Sam had heard it several times, he still didn’t fully understand how all of the pieces fit together. “It involved time travel to get the stones first and harness the power for themselves. Something like that, anyway. Honestly, I’m not sure how they didn’t fuck up the timelines.”
Michael had been mentally calculating what the outcomes of such a move could have been, and none of them were good. Anyone with basic knowledge of cause and effect and the way systems affected one another would have known there was no such thing as resetting or evening out the universe by exterminating half of it. “That… is not of a sound mind. The repercussions on every ecosystem, every ripple thereafter… Honestly I’m surprised there was a world to get back.”
Time-travel sounded about right, how else would they accomplish the resetting of a reset? Michael closed her eyes, smirking wryly. “They might’ve. Sometimes you don’t know until it’s too late. I know a thing or two about time-travel it’s...not an exact science without a lot of trial and error. I’m assuming in this case you really only had one chance.”
She wasn’t wrong, and it was something that had been on Sam’s mind as well. You couldn’t exterminate half of all life without massive damage across the board. Every climate, every ecosystem, was dependent on each piece working together. The remaining populations would die slowly -- or quickly, depending. But maybe that was the point all along.
“Yeah, just one chance, from what I’ve been told.” One slip up, and everything would change. One mistake meant more time travel, which meant more chances for mistakes. Everything was balanced so precariously. Sam assumed they might never know the consequences of their actions. “And it isn’t like anyone had a lot of time to prepare for it. Not that you can really practice for the unknowns.”
“No.” Michael agreed. “All you can do is prepare for the possibility of having to face it. Do your best with the information and the circumstances you have.”
She looked over at this man, with whom she appeared to have more in common than previously thought, and whose voice was so, so odd, and smiled. “I’ve had to sacrifice for the good of the many as well. It wasn’t easy, but made easier by not having to do it alone. I’m glad you weren’t alone either. I’m glad you achieved it.”
Sam looked over at Michael and smiled. God, how much he wished they weren’t having this conversation with his stupid Elmo voice. He’d opened up more about what the Avengers had done with her than he had with anyone outside of the Avengers themselves, and he’d told her more about his concerns and reservations than he had with any of them. The last time he’d trusted his gut like that, he’d ended up with a friend in Steve.
“I’m glad you weren’t alone, either. It’s a heavy thing, but you’re right, it’s easier when you can share the load,” Sam said. He meant it, even if he sounded like he was half-way to a giggle. “And I have half a mind to shut up now, just because I’m tired of hearing myself talk.” Then he laughed.
It was a bizarre situation to have such a serious talk when the other party had such a silly voice, but Michael was trying to not be bogged down by this. So far, she seemed to be succeeding, as was Sam. She laughed when Sam expressed distaste for his current voice, though.
“Maybe we should resume this conversation when your real voice comes back?” She suggested, as they were arriving at the base as well. “It’s hard to find people with whom I have things in common, to be honest. I try to cherish that when it happens.”
Sam grinned widely at Michael, grateful that she was sympathetic to his plight -- and, more importantly, grateful that she seemed to understand the things he’d been through and the things he’d done to get there. There weren’t many people outside of the Avengers who did, at least in his own world, but things were different in Atlantis.
She was right, after all: this sort of opportunity didn’t come by often, and he should treasure it.
“You’ve got a deal. We’ll get coffee when I’m back to normal.” Sam chuckled lightly. “Or maybe something stronger, given the subject matter."