red, white, & blue

Barry couldn’t believe what was happening, but he heard the person voice and it was helping. This wasn’t real anymore, thank god. He was glad that it wasn’t real and it was just from the past that this nightmare was from. Barry breathed for a minuted and he listened to the voice. “I’m Barry” he said slowly and quietly as he was coming out of this state. 

Jennifer went after Steve in the direction he pointed, trying to do it as quiet as possible. The creepy laugh was still ringing in her ears, and she felt like the sound was crawling under her skin. It was even more disturbing than finding dead people standing in her apartment this morning.

When she saw the figure on the edge of the platform, her first thought was it’s a child, then she realized, it was curled up man. She looked at Steve and prepared to back him up as he tried to make contact with him. Everything happened so fast- the man suddenly jumped on his feet and rushed into her companion. When he bounced off his shield, Jennifer runs towards him and grab with her arms. The man was wriggling wildly, trying to escape, when a small black object fell out of his pocket. When Jennifer realized what it was, something turned over in her stomach. 

“Steve, we’ve got the problem,” she called him when he was checking if there’s someone else here. “I don’t know what this lunatic saw because of that toxin, but he put a bomb here. He lured us into the trap.”

Steve held his shield up just in time to keep the man’s talon-like fingers from clawing out his eyes. Whatever madness had taken him made the man extra strong, even strong enough to make Steve use more force than normal to hold him back. But he didn’t have to hold him back for long.

Jennifer leapt into the fray, deftly grabbing the man, who wriggled in her arms hopelessly, like a fish on the end of a line. Steve was going to suggest knocking him out (gently-ish), and then taking him to a hospital or the authorities, but then something fell out of his pocket. She identified it quicker than Steve, but when she said the word, his eyes widened.

He leapt on the device immediately. It was a remote detonator. “It’s short-range,” he told her, glancing over the device. “If we can find it, maybe we can disable it. If that bomb goes off down here...” He trailed off, glancing down the subway tunnels. “We have to find it. But we need to contain him first,” he said, looking around. “There. That old telephone booth,” he said, pointing to it. “We’ll put him there, bend the door so he can’t get out. Then we find his bomb.”

“Once an Avenger, always an Avenger,” Cassie countered. She hated seeing one of her heroes so unsure of himself. Even without the shield and American flag, Captain Rogers was a hero. “I’m pretty sure that’s in your handbook somewhere.”

Steve paused for a moment, just blinking at her. A slow smile spread on her face, and he nodded. He wasn’t sure he believed in her words, but the sentiment rang true. “I hope so,” he said, glancing down at the ground for a moment. “You take care, Ms. Lang. I hope we meet again sometime.”

It was a relief that he was listening, but she should have known he would have questions. She wanted to answer them, but how could she without putting him in more danger? Something told her that if he knew the truth, he’d give some speech about facing it together and how they were stronger as a team. Being a team wasn’t going to help anything now, though.

“You can help me by getting far away, so I know you’re safe.” At least that wasn’t a lie; she didn’t want to be dishonest with one of the few people she could be open with. “Please, Steve. I need you to trust me.”

“I do, Nat,” Steve said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “I trust you with my life, you know that.” It hadn’t always been easy, for the two of them to trust each other. But she had helped him expose HYDRA within SHIELD, she had let him go in Germany -- as much as she could be, she had been honest with him. 

“But I don’t run from my friends,” he finished, squeezing her shoulder tightly. “Or from a fight. You know that, too.”

”Just trying to make a joke,” she said, frowning as he pushed himself off of the counter. “You are stubborn, aren’t you?” she asked, going to grab a bottle of water and handing it to him. “Someone who deserved it. His name isn’t worth saying”

“Right,” Steve murmured absentmindedly. He was memorizing where they were, so he could come back later and pay back the owner. Maybe help clean up the mess, too. He smiled wryly at her as Luna offered him a water bottle. “Sounds like you’re pretty stubborn yourself,” he pointed out, taking the water. He took a sip, and then walked over to the first aid area, grabbing a one-time use ice pack off the shelf. “Let me see those knuckles,” he said, holding out his hand. 

Natalia was exhausted. Sleep had been illusive all night and the pounding in her chest was starting to drive her insane. She couldn’t catch her breath and her head ached from the single, suffocatingly potent emotion pumping in the air. She knew she should be feeling it herself, constantly hearing a strong sharp “Nat” Following her along with Evan’s face around every corner. Still it wasn’t her own emotions that were driving her mad, she had long since dulled all of them sacrificing elusive happiness in order to numb the much more constant sadness and guilt she had suffered through for years. 

She puttered in her shop’s backroom trying to lax her tense muscles and slow her beating heart. Meditation and prayer had been her only turn trying desperately to stop everyone’s sheer terror from taking her over. In the middle of it she heard a voice, one that strengthened emotions she had thought long dead as she remembered dancing with this particular man for much of the night. She smirked and walked out. “Steve.” She greeted. She wasn’t used to not feeling someone coming with their emotions but she supposed the ones filling the air had made him hard to point. “Hello.” She added coming into the room and looking him over being hit with fatigue which seemed even stronger than her own. “Sit, sit down. I’ll make you some tea. Are you alright?” She asked. She didn’t feel fear. That was good.

A wave of relief washed over him when he heard her voice -- instead of her scream. Inside here, the shop warm and untouched by looters or the chaos outside, it almost felt like an entirely different world. He moved past the shelves, and smiled when he saw her, though she did look as exhausted as he felt. “Are you okay?” he asked, nearly the same time she asked him, and he laughed lightly. It was a weak laugh, but it was something.

“Thanks. Tea sounds... pretty amazing, actually,” he said, sitting down in one of the chairs she gestured towards. He set the shield at his feet, still within easy reach should he need it. “I shouldn’t stay long,” he said carefully. “But I wanted to check in on you.” 

“Yeah, 5 dollars will definitely rebuild this place,” she chuckled, knowing that this was probably not the best time to be throwing out jokes. Holy hell, she was turning into Jerome. “Luna, Luna Maximoff,” she smiled. “And yours? You have a weirdly familiar face but I cannot place it and it’s pissing me off”

Steve frowned slightly, glancing down at the dollar bills resting on the counter. “It’s all I’ve got on me right now,” he murmured softly. Maybe he wouldn’t take the water after all. He pushed off the counter and held out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Luna. I’m Steve Rogers. Who’d you punch anyway?”

“You’re going to pay for stuff during an apocalyptic situation, gotta give you credit there,” she said with a laugh as she walked beside him. Waiting a moment, she took the money from his hand and nodded for him to sit on an empty display case. “You obviously need to sit down more then I do. My hand can wait. Want a bottle of water?”

Steve nodded, rubbing the back of his neck absentmindedly. “Hopefully it’ll help make up for... some of the damages,” he murmured, gesturing around the already-looted store. He sighed, feeling responsible for not being here sooner. “Sure,” he said finally, leaning against the counter, scrubbing a hand over his face.”What’s your name?” he asked, picking his head up just a little. 

Steve was exhausted. All night long, he had been alternating between searching the underground for more strange containers spewing the gas, and staying on the streets trying to keep people from ripping each other -- or themselves -- apart. It had been a long, long night, and he was fairly certain it was only getting started.

It was odd to her feeling this sort of connection to him. She had met a few people like her through the years. People that had a sort of timeless opinion on things. The truth was that she didn’t romanticise the past but she did tend to prefer certain things from then. She just behaved like she was from another decade and always had. She was still a modern woman as far as rights and equality went but she wanted to have a house and be a wife without having to be a house wife. She was raised in a system of old money that hadn’t changed since the Victorian era. That came with certain pinons and thoughts and while she didn’t agree with all of it she had felt some things were important. “I think that’s probably true but a lot of people don’t know how to work towards it.” She pointed out. “It’s hard to do and it’s hard to realize where to start.” She said thoughtfully. She chuckled and suddenly a lot made more sense. “Oh you’re a soldier? I suppose it would sound like basic training. But hopefully with less yelling.” She joked playfully.

She felt a strange pang of longing reach through her emotions and jolt through her and she tilted her head. It must have been from him but she couldn’t quite understand why or where. Maybe a memory? Maybe something, or someone, he missed. It felt an awful lot like love. It was almost sad to feel that loss, not that she had experienced anything similar. Still it seemed to stir a long dead reaction inside of her that had her very confused. Natalia smiled a very understanding smile when he said that. “I’ll take that as an honor.” She offered. She didn’t know if she believed it was just a friend that he was talking about but she supposed reminding him of that woman was a good thing. She chuckled and smiled back. “I look forward to it.” She said more than happy to uphold the promise to change his mind.

She let herself have a moment she rarely allowed and relaxed into the familiar motions. His hands were gentle and his touch was present but not imposing. It made it easy to follow the steps her body had so deeply ingrained into it. It was nice though, the way they moved. He was a very good dancer even if she couldn’t always tell who was leading with the way they moved around the floor. “It was.” She mused “Very different from the norm though.” She admitted “I don’t think many people know how to handle me.” She admitted smirking. She was weird, odd, different. Traveling and going to ancient places with ancient cultures and getting lost in them trying to find herself, living as a debutante, everything with Evan, feeling the weight of his blood on her hands through all these years. It made her very outside of the norm, so she watched the norm from the outside. But sometimes that feeling was lonely. Natalia chuckled “Really? I can’t imagine someone wouldn’t want to dance with a handsome, charming, soldier.” She said honestly smirking and thought for a second before responding. “Well if you ever find space on it again let me know, I’ll fill it up for you.” She assured.

“Peace can be... challenging,” he settled on finally. He remembered Ultron’s voice, taunting him, calling him the man who couldn’t live without a war. That was worse than being a man out of time, Worse than anything else he had ever been, a dancing monkey, a lab experiment, an errant soldier -- a captain who lost his men, or failed to save the innocent. For as long as he remembered, he had just wanted the chance to do the right thing. But there was a fear in the back of his mind, subtle as a whisper, that made him question. He had the chance now, to do right, even if ‘right’ wasn’t as clear cut as he’d hoped. But what if he did the right things somehow, found a peace for the world, for himself -- what would he be then? 

He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

“On your end or mine? I've seen some of those society ladies, and I would not want to be on their bad side,” he teased lightly. He smiled at her words, polite and proper, but more sincere than he’d heard in a long time. There was a purity to her that had nothing to do with her manners. A good person, that’s what Erskine would’ve said. She had a good heart. Steve could sense it in his gut, and it hadn’t steered him wrong before.”It is,” he said quietly. “And so do I,” he said, nodding to her. 

The dancing was more pleasant than he’d ever imagined it. He’d never truly gotten a chance to do it before -- and maybe it wasn’t perfect, because he was far from perfect, treading slightly on her toes once and staring down at his own feet perhaps a little too often. But it was nice. It was peaceful, in a way that didn’t make those questions erupt in his mind. He was fully in the moment, caught up in her voice and the way they moved around the dance floor. “I’m sure,” he agreed. “But that’s not always a bad thing.” Not in his experience. It made for an interesting life, at the very least. A good life? He was still trying to figure that one out. “Sounds like a plan,” he said, laughing lightly. And they continued to dance, barely noticing that the song had changed. 

“We’re in New York,” she answered, brow creasing into a frown. Why was he asking her that? Did he not know where they were? Did he think she didn’t know? She pushed those questions aside, focusing herself on the matter at hand; keeping Steve and the other people that she cared for safe.

“Steve, I mean it. You need to get away from here. Away from me.” Even if he wouldn’t leave New York, at least him keeping his distance from her might throw them off, give the impression that she and Steve weren’t that close. 

Okay, that was a good start. But something still didn’t feel right, and this toxin had spread far and wide throughout the city, affecting some people and not others. It was impossible to say why, at least for him. Steve didn’t need to know the why just yet. Right now, he just needed to stem the bleeding. 

“Okay, okay,” he said, holding up his hands, mimicking her soft whisper. “But tell me why, Nat. Why do I have to get away from here? From you? We’re teammates still, right?” he asked, staring straight at her. “So tell me why. Tell me what’s going on, and maybe I can help you.” 

“Pleasure is all mine. After we handle the local apocalypse drinks on me.” Jennifer smiled when he mentioned knowing someone like her. Her thoughts immediately went to the beloved cousin. “Yeah, there’s a few of us. One of them saved my life.” They wouldn’t have this conversation if Bruce didn’t decide to visit her that day she got shot. 

“Alright then. It’s good to have someone who’s extra in a situation like this.” she joked and went after him. Going down the stairs, she prepared herself for an eventual attack. The green mist came out of the half-collapsed corridor on their left. Jennifer was moving the rubble to clear the path when she heard echoed screams mixed with the hysterical laughter. This sound made her shiver. “I think we’re going the right way. Someone’s there.”

Steve opted not to mention that drinks didn’t do much for him anymore -- he could still enjoy the sentiment. (Even if it was still slightly strange to think of a lady buying him a drink.) “Sounds like the guy I know,” he noted, more than a hint of fondness in his voice. “He tends to do that, more than he thinks he does.”

He flashed her a wry smirk, and nodded. “Likewise,” he said, following after her. It made more sense for her to do the heavy lifting, but once the path was clear, he led the way, shield first. He silently pointed towards the direction of the laughter, gesturing for her to flank to the left. He went straight onward, peering through the darkness until he saw him.

A man, crouched on the edge of the platform, clutching his head and laughing hysterically. Not a humorous kind of laugh, but the kind that erupted from you when you were so scared your mind didn’t know how to react. “Hey there,” Steve called gently, unsure if this man was victim or perpetrator. “You okay?”