Steve Rogers (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
onlyforthedream) wrote2011-04-08 12:33 am
onlyforthedream) wrote2011-04-08 12:33 am
Arrival.
There is a sound and a fury to the twenty first century that makes the clamor of post-War, pre-Depression Brooklyn seem tinny and small. Growing up in the city of churches, the noise was constant, everything reverberating off of brick and cobblestone, but I had no idea what true cacophony was until I became Captain America; first by way of the fire in my veins and the lights bombarding me as my body warped and changed itself into the machine I needed it to be to enact the duties my patriotism demanded; then in the explosive percussion of World War II; and finally, the modern age I came to live in, alive at all hours, saturated with noise and technology and so many voices striving so powerfully to be heard. It's all taken some getting used to.
There is a new quality of sound now, though, one I am not familiar with. One that rattles as hollowly around inside my chest as it does the corrugated metal interior of the armored car I'm riding in. It's distressed and dissonant, a low rumble that threatens to break into a fever pitch at the slightest provocation, at the correct signal, and I know before the doors open that I will be that catalyst, I'll be what ignites the crowd. It's not a good feeling, this knowledge.
It isn't shame that makes me regret having to walk up the steps of the Federal Courthouse in a few moments, it isn't some sense of wounded pride that makes the metal cuffed around my wrists feel heavy- though those things are there, undeniably. I'm not a saint, or liar enough to say they aren't- so much as a grim, sinking feeling that this fight isn't over. My part in it, maybe, but the people have had so much stripped from them, from heroes they trusted and relied on to rights they thought, still think, are inalienable, ones they may not yet realize to be corrupted. For some, seeing me marched to my arraignment by plain clothes and duty blues police officers, not a super-powered being among them, will be gratifying. Reassuring. For others it will doubtless create the kind of despair I first felt an inkling of when I realized Tony wasn't going to back down. I would have fought forever over this, but I stood down, and I'm starting to think I've left the heaviest lifting to people who don't yet understand how lengthy and far-reaching this campaign will be.
Or maybe I just can't accept a world without a war to fight, in which case it's all vanity. I'm not sure. That lack of certainty alone was reason enough for me to concede, I know that- and I wish it made this easier.
The doors open and the rumble becomes a low, dull roar. This is where S.H.I.E.L.D. will hand me over. I step down, the grips of my boots hitting familiar pavement, and it isn't more than the space of a moment before individual slogans become discernible, ones with words like traitor and fake, questions like how could you and condemnations that spell it out, very clearly- this is what I deserve. There are other words, hero and captain, a forcedly punchy chant of 'Free Cap', like a desperate, steady drum beat, and though the other words are louder, I can't ignore the voices of support. I can't ignore any of their voices, because it was doing that which brought me here. Then I get hit in the face with a tomato. If there's one thing you can say for my fellow New Yorkers, we do like to uphold traditions.
I don't have the same uncanny skills as so many of my fellow heroes. Peter's ability in particular, his sixth sense for danger, is one I have admired many times. You can only go so far in the field of combat, though, before you develop one of your own, and I look past the crowd to the buildings beyond. Some have the broader loft-style windows set into brick that are reminiscent of the apartments in Red Hook- home- only twenty minutes on the J train if I started for the subway station right now- while others sport tall, thin windows and old masonry so specific to the financial district, and it's in one of these that I see the scope of the sniper rifle.
It's easiest to assume I'm the target, though given the confluence of influences here that isn't a given. Regardless, everyone around me is in immediate danger, especially the officer leading me up the steps. If the bullet goes through me, if the shooter misses, it is this man who will be taking the shot.
No. No more. No more innocents will be wounded in this crossfire.
It hasn't been two seconds since the muzzle of the rifle registered in my vision and despite my exhaustion, the peculiar lethargy brought on by an unfamiliar sense of defeat, I throw myself forward, shoving the Federal Marshal up the steps and away from me, away from the line of fire. I can't get away from the crowd, but I can angle myself so whatever fire I take, it won't encompass anyone but me.
"Look out!" I yell, loud and strong enough to startle my escorts and, I hope to God, the crush of onlookers pressing ever closer against the barricades. I hear the crack of the rifle's discharge and a shredding in my back, impact and pain like only a bullet can really cause. I've been shot plenty of times- it is, understandably, part of the job description- but something gets hit inside and I feel it, my lung, as something pops and most of my air is suddenly gone. There's a strange, cold pain across the front of my chest and I know the bullet went through, must be lodged in the stone steps. It's staggering. It feels as though my heart's been ripped out.
I could swear to God I think I hear Sharon's voice as I fall.
There's light in my eyes, warm and bright, and the sharp edges of cut stone under me aren't the same width, the same number as the ones I was walking up just moments before. I try to breathe and it's too humid, though there's a secondary wetness, thick and coppery, in my throat. It should be more bewildering, the sudden shift in climate, in the quality of the air; the fact that all the sound seems to have gone out of the world, the screaming and hysteria, gone, the sound and the fury, gone.
Faulkner took the title of that book from a Shakespearean soliloquy. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time, and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. I can't remember which I read first, Faulkner or Shakespeare, just that they both came after Twain, and after... everything, I have to admit, it seems a small thing to be concerned about in the face of dying.
There is a new quality of sound now, though, one I am not familiar with. One that rattles as hollowly around inside my chest as it does the corrugated metal interior of the armored car I'm riding in. It's distressed and dissonant, a low rumble that threatens to break into a fever pitch at the slightest provocation, at the correct signal, and I know before the doors open that I will be that catalyst, I'll be what ignites the crowd. It's not a good feeling, this knowledge.
It isn't shame that makes me regret having to walk up the steps of the Federal Courthouse in a few moments, it isn't some sense of wounded pride that makes the metal cuffed around my wrists feel heavy- though those things are there, undeniably. I'm not a saint, or liar enough to say they aren't- so much as a grim, sinking feeling that this fight isn't over. My part in it, maybe, but the people have had so much stripped from them, from heroes they trusted and relied on to rights they thought, still think, are inalienable, ones they may not yet realize to be corrupted. For some, seeing me marched to my arraignment by plain clothes and duty blues police officers, not a super-powered being among them, will be gratifying. Reassuring. For others it will doubtless create the kind of despair I first felt an inkling of when I realized Tony wasn't going to back down. I would have fought forever over this, but I stood down, and I'm starting to think I've left the heaviest lifting to people who don't yet understand how lengthy and far-reaching this campaign will be.
Or maybe I just can't accept a world without a war to fight, in which case it's all vanity. I'm not sure. That lack of certainty alone was reason enough for me to concede, I know that- and I wish it made this easier.
The doors open and the rumble becomes a low, dull roar. This is where S.H.I.E.L.D. will hand me over. I step down, the grips of my boots hitting familiar pavement, and it isn't more than the space of a moment before individual slogans become discernible, ones with words like traitor and fake, questions like how could you and condemnations that spell it out, very clearly- this is what I deserve. There are other words, hero and captain, a forcedly punchy chant of 'Free Cap', like a desperate, steady drum beat, and though the other words are louder, I can't ignore the voices of support. I can't ignore any of their voices, because it was doing that which brought me here. Then I get hit in the face with a tomato. If there's one thing you can say for my fellow New Yorkers, we do like to uphold traditions.
I don't have the same uncanny skills as so many of my fellow heroes. Peter's ability in particular, his sixth sense for danger, is one I have admired many times. You can only go so far in the field of combat, though, before you develop one of your own, and I look past the crowd to the buildings beyond. Some have the broader loft-style windows set into brick that are reminiscent of the apartments in Red Hook- home- only twenty minutes on the J train if I started for the subway station right now- while others sport tall, thin windows and old masonry so specific to the financial district, and it's in one of these that I see the scope of the sniper rifle.
It's easiest to assume I'm the target, though given the confluence of influences here that isn't a given. Regardless, everyone around me is in immediate danger, especially the officer leading me up the steps. If the bullet goes through me, if the shooter misses, it is this man who will be taking the shot.
No. No more. No more innocents will be wounded in this crossfire.
It hasn't been two seconds since the muzzle of the rifle registered in my vision and despite my exhaustion, the peculiar lethargy brought on by an unfamiliar sense of defeat, I throw myself forward, shoving the Federal Marshal up the steps and away from me, away from the line of fire. I can't get away from the crowd, but I can angle myself so whatever fire I take, it won't encompass anyone but me.
"Look out!" I yell, loud and strong enough to startle my escorts and, I hope to God, the crush of onlookers pressing ever closer against the barricades. I hear the crack of the rifle's discharge and a shredding in my back, impact and pain like only a bullet can really cause. I've been shot plenty of times- it is, understandably, part of the job description- but something gets hit inside and I feel it, my lung, as something pops and most of my air is suddenly gone. There's a strange, cold pain across the front of my chest and I know the bullet went through, must be lodged in the stone steps. It's staggering. It feels as though my heart's been ripped out.
I could swear to God I think I hear Sharon's voice as I fall.
There's light in my eyes, warm and bright, and the sharp edges of cut stone under me aren't the same width, the same number as the ones I was walking up just moments before. I try to breathe and it's too humid, though there's a secondary wetness, thick and coppery, in my throat. It should be more bewildering, the sudden shift in climate, in the quality of the air; the fact that all the sound seems to have gone out of the world, the screaming and hysteria, gone, the sound and the fury, gone.
Faulkner took the title of that book from a Shakespearean soliloquy. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time, and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. I can't remember which I read first, Faulkner or Shakespeare, just that they both came after Twain, and after... everything, I have to admit, it seems a small thing to be concerned about in the face of dying.
no subject
"Buck...y...the crowd..." Speaking is immensely difficult. There are orders in my head that Bucky probably already knows but will need to hear, to let me go and do what needs doing. The same as I would, were our positions reversed. But between my brain and my mouth, filtered through the haze of pain and a feeling of slipping away toward sleep, they don't come out right.
"No m're inn'cents," I murmur. I can feel the blood as it slips in a slow stream out of the corner of my mouth. It seems more immediate than the sensation in my shoulder, somehow, which is actually starting to fade.
"No more."
no subject
"Then you better be sticking around."
no subject
As a soldier, I had never really looked past the end of the war, not the way Bucky did. It had taken so much time- lost time- before I could. With him here now, again, it's like another chance, but for what... I can't think clearly. There's something to be said, but.
"Th' shield," I try to say.
"Bucky... you... the sh..."
The diffuse sunlight behind Bucky's head makes everything go white, details blur. I wish I had known sooner he was still alive. I wish I hadn't failed him the first time. This almost looks like that, but it's quiet, and before everything goes black, not quite as cold.
no subject
Jesus Christ.
In my shock, I never stopped to really think about what this means, that he's from so far back in my past. And frankly, I don't stop to think about it now, either. There are far more pressing matters at hand; namely, making sure he doesn't die. Whatever baggage there is between us, whatever there is he doesn't know and I won't tell him... None of it's important. Not now. Those are concerns for the healthy and the whole. Getting him to a damn medic is the one and only priority.
That's easier said than done. He's bigger than I am -- a full five inches -- and all dead weight. I can lift him -- with my arm, I can lift him -- but it's awkward, and my enforced calm is slipping. Shock is giving away to panic I absolutely cannot afford to acknowledge; were this any other soldier on the field, I wouldn't have to worry about making sure I keep a level head, but Steve Rogers isn't just any other soldier -- even if he doesn't see it that way.
Back home, he ended up unstuck in time, but the chances of history repeating itself here are slim to none, island tricks be damned. There's just the one wound; he dies here, it's for good, and that's not an option I'm willing to so much as entertain. He wouldn't give up on me; I'll do him the courtesy of returning the favor.
So I don't think about the fact that I'm covered in his blood once I get him on his feet, propped up, bodily, against me, at the foot of the steps. Distantly, I'm aware of the fact that I'm panting, that my eyes sting from stubbornly unshed tears, that my heart's pounding from rage that he'd get his life turned upside down at the moment of his death. I'm too busy trying to figure out the best way to get him to the O.R. without causing more damage when the Compound door swings open, dragging me from my thoughts like a wild horse, because there's my answer right there: Peter Parker, Spider-Man. That it happens to be someone I know is convenient, but the truth is, it could've been anyone, and I would've asked for help.
"Peter," I say, even but urgent, my eyes flicking from him back to Steve's shoulder. "We've got to get him to a doctor ASAP."
no subject
And, you know, there's about a fraction of a second where I'm honest-to-God relieved. How's that for awful, huh? Fortunately, the guilt kicks in right away when I realize who's doing the shouting -- and why. I'm not especially close with Bucky -- not that he doesn't seem like a nice guy, or anything, but he's from both before and after my time, which is a weird thing to think about, really -- but the man whose weight he's struggling under is a different matter entirely.
"...Cap?"
I blink a couple of times, trying to make sense of what I'm seeing. Which is insane, because there's no sense to be made. I mean, I get it. Superheroes, we get shot. You kinda sign up for that. It's part of the gig. But somehow, it's different, seeing someone like Captain America clinging to the edge of life. There are about a million questions I want to ask -- numbers one and two being what happened and how are you so freaking calm -- but I don't get any of them out. I drop my half-eaten sandwich on the ground, then jump down the steps, helping Bucky lift Cap without another word.
"I don't-- He just showed up like this?"
no subject
"Yeah," I say breathlessly, nodding once. That's the only information he needs to know. With the added help, it's not as awkward, carrying Steve towards the O.R., but a real stretcher wouldn't have gone unappreciated. So when I see another guy approaching, I call out, "Hey, you! Give us a hand!"
no subject
"Oh my God," he said, allowing himself a moment of shock. It was rare to see someone hurt seriously here, rarer still to realize the man wasn't just hurt, he'd been shot.
As he jumped in to help that shock melted away, replaced by his favorite feeling in the world, one he'd been missing for a long time. Determination, and confidence that he knew what to do. That could do this. "I'm Dr. O'Malley, what the hell happened to him?"
And why did he look so damned familiar?
no subject
"GSW to the right shoulder. Sniper bullet tore right through him," I rattle off as we walk, the O.R. quickly looming larger. "Before he passed out, he was having difficulty breathing-- With the amount of blood, I'd say you're dealing with a collapsed lung, and possible damage to his ribs."
no subject
"Once we get him inside, I need you to get a hold of Dr. Grey," he said, and added as an afterthought, "Meredith Grey. She'll need to know what's going on, and send along another doctor or two to assist."