#jess threads.

ever since steve had returned from his last op, jess has been paying close attention to him. perhaps too much, it’s almost creepy (but that’s her partner, so who cares, really?). the patch in his tac suit hadn’t taken her long, but the wound had certainly caught her eye afterwards- it had been days, and it still remained. so the first chance she gets, jess corners him in their bedroom, shutting the door behind her. “steve,” she starts, voice level, though internally her heart is pounding - she has a nagging suspicion that he’s about to confirm her fears. “that slash from the other day. you still have it,” jess nods towards him and swallows harshly, “that should be long gone. baby, what did you do?”

captain rogers, comes a frightened voice across the comms, sir, there’s - there’s an agent down. your agent. a pause. conroy is K.I.A. the building, the sniper’s roost, it - it collapsed. her vitals are gone, sir.

jess’s ears are ringing. there’s small pinpricks of light dotting the sky above her, at least she thinks there might be - she can’t open her eyes very much at all. her body feels leaden, she can’t lift her arms or legs, so she just ... breathes. it doesn’t sound good, she thinks. the air is heavy with dusty and debris, and there’s a rattling in her lungs followed by a bloom of pain in her otherwise numb body. she’s alive, but oh, does she ever feel like death. her comm has gone silent, likely broken during the fall, much like the rest of her. and so, jess conroy, never one to give up on much of anything, accepts her fate faster than any person ought to, then shuts her eyes and waits.

okay, okay - she knows better. of course she knows better, booker had sold them out and deserved his punishment, and if andy caught her doing this, she’d have her head with that shiny axe she loved so much - so what the hell was she doing on his porch? jess is caught red handed, a bottle of far-too-expensive whiskey in hand as she leans down to put it on the step. it’s not the first she’s brought him since everything went to shit, but it might have to be the last. she freezes and glances up at the door, offering a two-fingered mock salute. “hey, book,” jess gives a tight-lipped smile, “i, uh - thought you could use this.”

jess enters the bedroom slowly, body on autopilot and cell phone clutched in a white knuckled grip. her gaze is a thousand miles away. she sinks to sit on the edge of the bed, looking down at her lap - jess is vaguely aware of steve’s voice, fuzzy as it is, somewhere in the room. her head is spinning, and she can’t seem to grasp on to much of anything besides the resounding toll of grief that’s radiating down her spine. “my dad died.” the words fall heavy from her numb tongue, “he had a heart attack in his cell, he’s - he’s dead.” her grief confuses her. all her life, when she has thought of a moment like this, feeling remotely bothered has never factored into the equation - so why now does her chest feel heavy? jess looks up at steve and searches his face as if he holds the answers she needs. she swallows hard and tries to steady her trembling chin, but a pathetic sound leaves her and her voice cracks as soon as she opens her mouth, “why does it hurt?”

@lexpxrdus​ said: i’m still a believer, but i don’t know why

THIS MIGHT BE THE FOLKLORE MEME?

“you keep looking at me like you’ve got something you wanna say, joey.” jess can feel his eyes boring holes into the side of her head, so she finally gives up on the briefing file she’s going through in favour of turning her attention towards him. she stares at him in pointed silence for a moment before she sighs. “spit it out, kid, before your head explodes.”

the cupboard has been something of a soothing constant for josef, she thinks - to some extent, it might have served the same purpose for steve, for all of the times she’s found him there. for jess, it’s been a surefire way to keep tabs on her family as they came and went through the range over the years. finding josef there, even now as a full grown adult, isn’t out of the ordinary - but his radio silence definitely is. jess pauses and watches him disappear into the cupboard before she sets down the logbook she’s been checking and follows him in. “joey?” she finds him sitting on the floor, favourite snack in hand, and her chest squeezes painfully. jess sighs softly, plucking a packet of oreos from the shelf and settling herself down on the floor beside him in silence; she’s learned as they’ve both gotten older that she can’t force response out of him - she’s grown comfortable with silence, rather than trying to fill each moment with explanations and, undoubtedly, anger. 

jess feels the kid’s presence in the room before he actually makes himself known - she blames the army for her uncanny ability to sense another person. and she’s never slept well anyways (she blames the army for that too). she cracks one eye and lifts her head from where she’s got her face smothered in the pillow, reaching a hand out towards ilya to gesture him forwards. “hi, chickadee,” she says softly, careful not to wake her sleeping counterpart, “you okay?”