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| My Shoes Keep Walking Back To You; 05/24-afternoon-(Steve, Sharon, James) | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Sep 10 2014, 08:01 PM (569 Views) | |
| Sharon Carter | Mar 4 2015, 03:59 PM Post #46 |
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He Who Hesitates Is Toast
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Jacqui? Jacqui had everything to do with that bear that Steve was holding and that James absolutely adored. Lady Jacqueline Falsworth Crichton had very gleefully had everything to do with it, but Sharon didn't think Steve necessarily needed her to confirm that. He'd known Jacqui since she actually was exactly as young as she still looked and sometimes still acted. It was nothing but luck and timely intervention that had kept Bucky Bear's logical partner from making an appearance and she briefly wondered what Steve would've made of of that if he'd pulled it from under the pile of rumpled bed clothes. She wondered a little, too, at the look on his face now. One she couldn't quite read but that struck her as...what? A little far away? Something, for just a moment, that made her wonder what old memory he was seeing before it was wiped away by an easy smile. The open, unguarded kind that always took her a little by surprise and reminded her exactly why she'd fallen in love with him all those years ago. That made something behind her sternum catch, now, and turn over as she met his eyes, smile softening. Then it was back to James' bear with a considering look and the former SHIELD agent decided formal introductions were in order. It was their son's favorite toy in the world (not counting the one or two that weren't actually toys), they might as well get acquainted. He'd be seeing a lot of Bucky Bear from now on. This time, the smile on Steve's face was a wry one. That one was easy to read. “Buck would have hated it,” he remarked, brushing the soft, but somewhat squashed fur on its face with his thumb confirming exactly what Sharon had always suspected and Jacqui would've known without any doubt at all. “Which I guarantee is the other half of exactly why Jacqui did it,” Steve added sardonically as he turned to her again. "I think that's a safe enough assumption," she confirmed, smiling still and watching as the smile on his face softened and he looked down at James' bear again. Sharon didn't really have to wonder very much what he was thinking, then, as he made their little boys bear at home on his lap and took another look around the small room that was like all the other living quarters on the helicarrier and hadn't changed in any significant way since the last time the two of them had sat, just like this, in one very much like it. More than five years ago, but right now it could've almost been yesterday. “Jacqui and Joey,” Steve began again, turning those clear blue eyes back to hers again and dispelling the almost eerie feeling of the past overlaying the present. “You’ve been living with them?” With a nod of her head, Sharon reached for his hand again as he sat there with their son's stuffed bear in his lap and all the things waiting for them in the coming minutes sitting like a palpable weight on her shoulders. On both their shoulders, and maybe it was a little lighter for that, even if she knew it still wouldn't be anything like easy. "More or less," she qualified with a smile still on her face. "For a while, we had our own place, just outside London. When James was a baby." Glancing down at her little boys bear, she reached over with her free hand to absently straighten him up a little, even though he didn't really need it. At first, she needed that space. To get herself together, to get her feet back under her. Meet it all on her own terms. Adjust to this tiny, terrifying little person who was totally and completely dependent on her for everything. "But after a while, it felt like we were just rattling around in that flat." Lifting her eyes back to his again, her smile widened, taking on a slightly bemused edge. "And Jacqui's relentless." She wouldn't have to explain that to Steve, though, god knew. And, honestly, she hadn't really put up much resistance past a certain point. "By the time James could outrun me, I was ready to surrender," Sharon admitted, fingers tightening on Steve's. "We were at her place in the city more than ours by then, anyway, and it saved us both a lot of going back and forth." From almost the minute she'd touched down in Heathrow airport, Jacqui had been there. She'd never been exactly sure if Nick had called her or if Sam had or how she'd known, but she had and she'd been a constant since then that Sharon was very, very thankful for more than once. "Joey's still working under the illusion he's living on his own," the former agent added with more than a hint of amusement. "He's stubbornly hanging onto his own flat, but he hardly ever stays there and we cooperate by not pointing out that we notice." A small pause as her expression shifted toward more serious again as she looked into the eyes of the man she'd thought she'd lost forever, and found again against all odds, and now was going to marry. "They've been good friends and James is crazy about them. It's not a decision I've ever regretted making." Not always easy, but it had always felt right. For James and for her. |
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| Steve Rogers | Mar 8 2015, 08:45 PM Post #47 |
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The Man Behind the Shield
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Yes, he thought he had a fairly certain idea of just why Jacqui had made this bear for James. Knowing what Buck would have thought of it, and knowing that Spitfire knew that too, it was all too easy to hazard a guess that really wasn’t. “I think that's a safe enough assumption," [Sharon] confirmed, a smile in her voice that Steve could hear as he rearranged the bear on his lap and let his thoughts go back to the little boy to whom Bucky the bear belonged. The stuffed animal made it a little easier, a little more of a tangible hold for the idea that there was a little boy who was his son. That this was his life, and his life would have not only Sharon, but a son who was theirs, and who they would raise together. It was a good thought. But there was still the present, and the past whose tale was still unfinished, so after losing a few moments to those thoughts, Steve turned back to the woman whom he’d loved from the very first moment that he saw her, and began to try to pull some more of those threads back together. She’d mentioned Jacqui and Joey, and England, and the way she had suggested this was more than seeing them every now and again. She’d been living with them? A nod, then a slender hand slipping back into his with all the ease of familiarity, and all the electricity that came from long waiting. Sharon’s hand, and Sharon’s fingers, curling around his own the way he’d hardly dared to let himself miss. Whatever would come - and incurable optimist or not, he wasn’t blind enough to think that there weren’t still hurts awaiting - with her, it still felt easier. “More or less," she qualified with a smile still on her face. "For a while, we had our own place, just outside London. When James was a baby." Steve watched her eyes drop as she took a moment to arrange Bucky Bear into a slightly more optimal seated position, watching the play of light on her features as though he could somehow have been able to use that to look into that time and see their son as an infant. He couldn’t, of course - but he liked to imagine that there was something of it reflected in Sharon’s expression all the same. “But after a while, it felt like we were just rattling around in that flat,” she added, lifting her eyes to meet his again, and a humor in them that was plain to see. “And Jacqui's relentless.” Steve grinned himself, shaking his head slightly. Yes, he’d had occasion to notice that himself more than once. “By the time James could outrun me, I was ready to surrender," Sharon admitted, fingers tightening on Steve’s bringing an extra warmth and solidity that was still welcome. “We were at her place in the city more than ours by then, anyway, and it saved us both a lot of going back and forth.” “And he still can’t outrun her, I assume,” Steve observed, running his thumb lightly over the back of Sharon’s hand as he did, just for the extra contact. “Joey’s still working under the illusion he's living on his own," the former agent added with amusement that spoke eloquently of exactly how much truth was in that particular assertion of Union Jack’s, ”He’s stubbornly hanging onto his own flat, but he hardly ever stays there and we cooperate by not pointing out that we notice.” Eyebrows lifting, Steve snorted softly. That sounded like Joey. Of course, it also sounded rather like a few memories he had of a woman who might just be sitting next to him right now. But maybe he would - what had Sharon’s term been? - cooperate and not point that out either. Sharon’s expression had sobered though - with sincerity, Steve thought, rather than the alternative, going from the look she wore as she met his eyes again. “They’ve been good friends and James is crazy about them. It's not a decision I've ever regretted making.” She’d had people around her. Good people, and their son had had them too. Even if he hadn’t been there, there had been good people in their lives to help them. “I’m glad,” Steve told her with complete honesty, although even that knowledge couldn’t fully ease the regret for those years of their lives that he’d missed. But regrets wouldn’t change that, and so instead he shifted, letting go of Sharon’s hand for a moment so that he could wrap his arm around her and draw her closer, just to be holding her for a little longer. |
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| Sharon Carter | Mar 9 2015, 03:20 PM Post #48 |
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He Who Hesitates Is Toast
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She'd come to living with Jacqui in stages. Sharon guessed that was how she did a lot of things, but at least Steve let her get by without pointing that out. At least not this time. He was still getting his feet under him. She wouldn't count on that lasting. They'd been on their own for a while, her and James. It was time and space she'd needed, then, but Jacqui had still been there, all the same. On the edges, waiting her out more or less patiently. Lady Jacqueline Falsworth Crichton was, in a word, relentless. Steve knew that as well as anyone and the grin that proved that lit up his face as he shook his head. It took away the shadows that years and war and all of this had put there. Lifted them off and gave her a glimpse of the Steve Rogers she'd seen in Peggy's early old film reels. The one who'd only just put on that uniform and took on the task of being one man filling the shoes of what should've been hundreds. There'd never been enough times she'd seen him smile that way, but maybe that was something that could change. Not today, but but someday. Some day in the not too distant future. For now, she tightened her fingers on his, admitted her eventual surrender to Jacqui that had never been in any real doubt. “And he still can’t outrun her, I assume,” Steve observed, running his thumb lightly over the back of her hand. A light, comforting point of contact that had her brushing her own fingertips lightly along his palm as she cocked a bemused eyebrow. "Not yet, but he's sure he'll be able to by the time he's seven or eight," Sharon replied with no small amount of wry amusement. Just like he'd been absolutely and completely confident that he could've fought off Sentinels or could do whatever else he set his mind to. So much like Steve. Find a way and just make it happen. Then there was Joey, who of course wasn't living there with them, too, despite almost never being anywhere else. Including the apartment he'd kept out of stubbornness. She and Jacqui generally cooperated by not noticing and the snort from Steve followed that covered the rest of it well enough. They'd both been good friends. To her and to James. Family, really. They'd been lucky to have that and it was something she'd wanted for their son. Something she'd wanted to be able to give him. It had never been a decision she'd regretted making. “I’m glad,” Steve told her, honestly. The way Steve was nearly always honest. She knew that without having to wonder or make a guess. None of it was a substitute for the five years they might have had. Together. Raising their son. But it had been a good decision, and a good, happy five years for James with people who loved him. Steve let go of her hand, then, wrapping her up in those strong, reassuring arms of his like he'd been reading her mind. He could still do that too much and too easily, Sharon mused, as she slid her arms around his back and moved in closer. Where she'd always felt like she belonged and where she'd always wanted to be. Sometimes she might've fought against it. Too many times she'd pushed him away. That hadn't ever changed anything at all. Steve, filling up her world the way he always did. Her arms drew around him tighter, palms pressed against his broad back, and that was enough for now. To hold him and know he was here now. To really know that, let it sink in and just hold him while it did. "There are pictures," Sharon told him at length, letting those soft words break the comfortable silence as she ordered her thoughts again. "Albums of them, back at the apartment. Of James, over the last four and a half years. Jacqui insisted," she explained with a smile. Like she'd said. Relentless. She'd never been much of a picture taker herself. Past a snapshot or three, it probably wouldn't have even occurred to her. "I can tell her to bring them." Spitfire would be on the first plane she could get, and Joey right with her, when they got the news that Steve was still alive. It wouldn't be the same as getting those years back, seeing them in snapshot, but it was something. "He's so much like you," she added, shifting and turning her head enough to see his face again. And saying that with a smile, too. |
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| Steve Rogers | Mar 16 2015, 08:03 PM Post #49 |
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The Man Behind the Shield
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Seven or eight, Sharon had ‘estimated’, for the time James could outrun Jacqui. Well, he’d look forward to that day, along with all the other days he had - they had, rather - coming, watching their son grow and achieve whatever it might be that he wanted. They’d do it together. Because as glad as he was - and he truly was glad, that wasn’t simply lip service - that Sharon had had Jacqui and Joey (holding keys to his own apartment or not) with her for those years, that gladness was no real cure for the shallow ache of regret that he hadn’t been. There was nothing to be done for that, of course. Nothing any of them could to change it. There was only looking forward. That was what Steve Rogers decided to do, shifting position so he could take the woman he loved in his arms, holding her close and feeling her arms slip around him as she drew herself in still closer. In all their time together - and that was a story that stretched out, what, a decade now? - there had never been enough moments like this. Maybe there never would be, since he knew as Sharon tightened her grip, holding him like she was worried he might melt away if she didn’t, that he could live another ninety years and never be tired of this. It was always new, and always familiar, and it was always love. It always had been, whatever hurdles had been put in their path, whether from the world or from themselves. “There are pictures," Sharon told him at length, replacing the silence with the comfort of hearing her speaking softly to him again. Steve shifted his head, looking down to her face. Pictures? “Albums of them, back at the apartment. Of James, over the last four and a half years. Jacqui insisted," she explained with a smile which brought an answering one to his face. Or maybe that was for the words too. Photos? “I can tell her to bring them.” Steve nodded, though he did have to doubt whether Sharon would need that additional confirmation for an agreement she’d almost certainly be able to see in his expression. “I’d like that,” he confirmed though, just in case. Pictures of his son - a record of who he’d been, how he’d grown. Snapshots and moments out of the part of his life that he’d missed. Yes. He definitely would like that. “He’s so much like you," [Sharon] added, turning her beautiful face up to look at him, along with a gift of another of those rare smiles that she’d never bestowed on just anything. For a long, slow moment, Steve looked back into her eyes, a smile of his own hovering on his lips. Then he lowered his head, leaning forward to kiss her lips softly. “I see you in him,” he told her, when that was over. In James’ smile, and the sparkle of determination in his eyes. If you’d spent as much time watching Sharon Carter, or dreaming of her, as he had, it was plain to see that. A son who looked like them. Who was happy, and who they could look forward to raising to be whatever it was he might want to be. They’d be doing it together, as a family. It was a pleasant thought, and the moment a comfortable one, that would have been something to be able to stretch out for as long as they could have made it. Steve would have liked that certainly, but whatever he might have been doing for five years, he knew better than to imagine that it could. Even without what Sharon, Clint and Jessica had told him already, he could have guessed it. Knowing that… …no. This might have been a pleasant interlude, but it had been an interlude. He could guess that, and whatever might have happened to them, they’d never been people to avoid facing what they needed. They wouldn’t be that now either. “Tell me,” Steve spoke up, looking back at Sharon and seeking her eyes so he could see her when he added a gentle prompt, “what you aren’t telling me yet. There’s something, isn’t there?” He could feel it. |
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| Sharon Carter | Mar 17 2015, 05:45 PM Post #50 |
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He Who Hesitates Is Toast
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How much different would it all have been, if Steve had never seen the inside of that cell Hank Pym and Carol Danvers put him into? How much different for James, to have had his father all this time, all his life? How much different for her, and for Steve, to have each other? It was a question she could ask over and over without finding any real answer beyond 'very, very different'. An exercise in futility and regrets that Sharon thought she would be able to let go of (mostly) - here, now - in Steve's arms again. In the easy quiet between them. What was done was done. She could never forgive it, but it didn't have any place being dragged into their future. Enough of their time and their lives had been sacrificed to things that couldn't be changed now. That didn't mean she couldn't give Steve a little bit of a window into the past. James', at least, in the form of photos. Several albums of them. Taken at Jacqui's insistence when she probably wouldn't have thought of it herself, past a snapshot here and there. A way for him to see James grow up, even if it wasn't the way he should've seen it. Steve's smile, the look in his eyes, on his face, were all the confirmation she needed, but there was a nod, too, and words to go with them. “I’d like that,” he confirmed as she turned her face to his again smile softening around the edges. That handsome, smiling face that she saw so much of in their son. James was so much like Steve. From his face to his attitude about the world. Kind and generous and fearless in a way she'd only ever known his father to be. For a moment that stretched out, Steve held her eyes. Held that look. It was a look she could get lost in and had, more than once, whether she'd gone to pains to keep him from knowing that or not. She was going to marry him, the man bending his head, lips meeting hers, soft and warm and moving her in a way that only Steve Rogers ever had or could. “I see you in him,” he told her and Sharon smile widened a little, tipped up at one corner. Maybe later, she'd tell him about JJ's clone theory, and how half the Avengers had taken one look at their son and gone straight to their own 'clone of Steve Rogers' theory in less than five seconds flat. But not right now. James looked like his father, and maybe a little like his mother, and he was most definitely theirs. No cloning necessary and she had the stretch marks to prove it. That was how it should be, the former Agent 13 thought. This was how it always should've been. "I love you, Steve Rogers," was Sharon's answer to that, the one she said aloud because it was the only important one. Right here, right now, in a moment she already knew couldn't last, even if part of her would've rather held onto it and delayed the rest indefinitely. They weren't that kind of people, though. Never had been. Did either of them know how to face anything other than head on? God knew she didn't and the times she'd tried to do it any other way had been disaster enough to confirm that. So there was no real surprise when Steve spoke up again and said, “Tell me,” clear blue eyes coming back to hers, “what you aren’t telling me yet. There’s something, isn’t there?” There were a million things. Sitting in that folder, crowding into the front of her brain. So much he didn't know. That, however, wasn't what he'd asked and they both knew it. No crossed wires this time. Only the thing that might be the hardest for him to hear and the last thing she wanted to have to say to him, even if he already had to suspect. Had to have noticed the absence of the man who'd have been right there, no matter what when Steve came out of that cell, if there was any way he could've been. One hand moved around to his shoulder as she held his eyes. Nodded. "Sam," she began, hand tightening on his shoulder and all the sadness and frustration of that stupid, pointless death of another good man rushing back to the fore all over again. God, she didn't want to say this. Not to Steve, not on top of everything else he was having to digest, this was the last thing she wanted to add. Another thing for her to put onto the pile of unforgivable offenses lying at the feet of Carol Danvers, Hank Pym, and Tony Stark, "He didn't make it, Steve." Voice faltering at the end, Sharon paused, gathered herself again and continued, watching his face and his eyes. "Two weeks after James was born, Sam came back here. It was supposed to be temporary, but he felt like he should try to do...something." Something to try to help. To stem the escalating tide of what looked like the Avengers completely losing their damned minds. It was Sam, he couldn't just sit by and watch. "Things were escalating. They'd sent Sentinels after the X-Men and Scott Summers was dead. So was Ben Grimm, and Franklin and Reed Richards were missing. So was the Power Pack. There were rumors..." she trailed off with a shake of her head, closing her eyes for a few seconds. She'd get to that later. Right now, talking about those kids, what they knew now had happened to them, with James at the front of her mind...Sharon didn't think she could do it and it'd just take them off topic. "It all went to hell so fast, Steve," she picked back up again, eyes opening and going back to his. "But some of them were still trying to do it the right way. There was a protest in Washington, against the new policies, over what was happening. It was peaceful. Sam, Hank McCoy, Marc Specter, decided to go. There were a lot of civilians. Some of them with powers that barely counted as powers. A lot of them just people. The CSA sent in Sentinels." She'd found out from the news, watching the BBC coverage of world events. The memory was as clear as if it had happened yesterday, that helpless, helpless rage, and Sharon swallowed hard. Reached up to rub a hand over her eyes, ignoring that her fingers came back damp, other arm still around the man in front of her. "They called it a 'response to a credible terrorist threat' on the White House, of course," she spat the word out bitterly, like acid that burned her tongue. There hadn't been a threat, no crazed mutant trying to suicide bomb the Capitol, they'd just tried to spin it that way. She hadn't been in espionage half her life without being able to recognize a clumsy attempt at a covering up a mess they'd made. "Sam, Hank, and Marc, they were all killed. 'Acceptable collateral damage.'" |
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| Steve Rogers | Mar 25 2015, 08:51 PM Post #51 |
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The Man Behind the Shield
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“I love you, Steve Rogers.” Not the answer he might have expected for telling Sharon how much of her he saw in their son, but it wasn’t something he could imagine ever being disappointed to hear. Not from Sharon, and not when she said it while looking at him with the light in her eyes that he’d fallen for years before. “I love you, Sharon Carter,” he replied, and that was nothing but the truth, and had been for as long as he’d known her. It always would be. Even when he’d believed that she was gone forever, it had been true. But… loving each other had never managed to make the world stop turning, had it? Not for longer than happy instants that might feel like eternity, anyway. Those had to surrender to reality sooner or later though, and happy as he was - happy as, for once, he was utterly sure that Sharon was too - Steve had no real illusions that this moment was any different. Not with everything that he knew already about what had been happening in the world while he’d been in the room with white walls. And not with knowing, just from the patterns of spaces that had been left out from what Sharon, and Clint and Jess had told him so far, that there was more that he hadn’t been told yet. Not just omitted as a detail that could wait, but something more deliberately edged around, as though they’d been waiting for the right moment. Something was there, wasn’t it? He’d guessed right. He knew that, just from the grave look he could see in Sharon’s eyes, even before her hand moved to his shoulder in a gesture of support. And then, there was the nod. “Sam,” she said, the name reaching him through the gentle press of her fingers on his shoulder as much as through his ears. “He didn't make it, Steve.” Sam. So that was it. None of the set of optimistic explanations, reasons, or inventions he might have tried to tell himself about why there had been no sign of Sam, and why not one of the people he’d spoken to today had mentioned him. No sensitive mission. No old hang-ups Clint might still - however incredibly, even for him - be nursing from times long past about the man who… who… …was gone. Sam was gone. Without changing, the world became a very still, very quiet place, color and texture falling softly out of focus. Steve found his eyes had fixed on a point somewhere away on the far wall of the room, and he didn’t move them. Just stayed watching it, every muscle in his body controlled to nearly perfect stillness as he took that piece of information, and held it carefully in his mind till he was sure that he could accept that it was true. Sharon’s voice had held more than a quiver of emotion. He should… pull himself together. Be there for her, while she had to relive this. He did know what Sam had been to her, too - a friend of the kind he hadn’t often seen her make. But even knowing that wasn’t enough to allow him to push past the wall that he had to hold himself steady. Sam. Sam, too. Again, coming back from the supposed dead apparently came at the price of learning that the cost had been his best friend. Last time, it had been Bucky. This time… “How?” he asked, making his eyes turn back to find Sharon’s. She was there, already looking at him. Ready with the information he needed, and - strong the way she always had been - holding her own emotions in check to deliver it. Telling him that Sam had come back to the US, after James was born (he’d been there with her through that? No, that couldn’t even be a question. Of course he would have been. Sam would never have let her go through that alone, however much she might have insisted that she could). Because he’d thought he needed to try to help. It was a smarter move than trying to prove something by getting on a wired-plane on a mission that had never been anything but suicidal. It shouldn’t have felt like an echo of 1945 to hear that the Falcon wouldn’t be content to sit out a fight that was tearing his own country apart. It shouldn’t. But it did. “Things were escalating,” Sharon continued, “They’d sent Sentinels after the X-Men and Scott Summers was dead. So was Ben Grimm, and Franklin and Reed Richards were missing. So was the Power Pack. There were rumors..." she trailed off with a shake of her head, closing her eyes for a few seconds. Without thinking about it, or about anything but letting those additions to the list of names that was growing in his head settle into reality too, Steve shifted his grip, holding her tighter. For her sake, and for his own, too - the warmth, and the reassuring solidity of her body was an anchor. This, too, was something they could accept, and weather. She already had, and it was the only option. “It all went to hell so fast, Steve," she picked back up again, eyes opening and going back to his. "But some of them were still trying to do it the right way. There was a protest in Washington, against the new policies, over what was happening. It was peaceful. Sam, Hank McCoy, Marc Specter, decided to go. There were a lot of civilians. Some of them with powers that barely counted as powers. A lot of them just people. The CSA sent in Sentinels.” “Sentinels,” Steve echoed, voice dulled by surprise - or more truly, by a lack of it. They’d sent Sentinels. Either one of Tony or Carol alone, and certainly the pair of them together, ought to have had the powers and the skills to neutralize almost any imaginable threat that might conceivably have been lurking in the veils of a peaceful protest without endangering the public. He’d worked with both of them long enough to be sure of that. But instead they’d sent in Sentinels. Though he’d still barely moved since Sharon had first uttered Sam’s name, Steve felt the tightness forming between his brows as they drew down into an angry frown. Had that been in his name too? “They called it a 'response to a credible terrorist threat' on the White House, of course,” Sharon added, the words coming with the bite and the burn of a whip’s lash, and etching the frown deeper on Steve’s forehead. What kind of response… even what the Senate committee had tried to force him to do, and what they’d tried to mold John Walker into after he’d refused it, couldn’t compare with that. “Sam, Hank, and Marc, they were all killed. 'Acceptable collateral damage.’” Steve’s gaze had turned to the wall again, but with effort, he found he could keep his expression steady. It was rigid though, each muscle taut with the effort it took to keep his thoughts and his feelings in some kind of check. “I remember that term,” he said. From Germany, and from both sides on the Russian front. Always the same way of speaking, and always the same lie. Weapons of mass destruction, sent against their own citizens at a peaceful protest. He’d never expected to see that again. Certainly never in his country. And Marc… Hank… and Sam, had each paid the price for that here? |
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| Sharon Carter | Mar 26 2015, 06:43 PM Post #52 |
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He Who Hesitates Is Toast
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Sam. The name neither of them had mentioned yet. That probably said all that needed to be said when it came to what Steve had to suspect by now and how much Sharon herself didn't want to have to confirm those suspicions she knew he had to have. Not saying it out loud made it...not easier. Not at all. Less real? Less present? It was the last thing she'd ever wanted to have to say to him and the last thing he'd want to hear but, no, they weren't people who could skirt around the unpleasant truth forever. They never had been. So. Sam. The name. The confirmation that he hadn't made it as she watched that knowledge settle itself over the man she loved. The far away, almost blank look it put into his eyes to know that his best friend had been one of the casualties of this war. Again. Something behind her ribs caught. Ached. Watching Steve go still. Motionless. No she didn't want to do this. Had never wanted to do this. Who the hell would? Damn Carol and Tony and Hank all over again for making it necessary. For putting both of them through this on the day Steve stepped out of five years in a cell they'd made for him. For taking Sam and all the others. For every fucking time one of them had to do this. Goddamn them. “How?” he asked, eyes moving back to hers and she tried to swallow down everything that went with those memories. Everything but the facts. Tried again to treat this like any other debriefing. Something they'd done hundreds of times before. It wasn't an entirely successful effort, how could it be? But it was enough. Enough to tell him how it had happened. How it had all gone to hell so fast. Sentinels. Scott Summers dead. Ben Grimm, too. Reed Richards missing. Franklin Richards and those four Power kids, gone. Steve tightened his hold on her and Sharon did the same with him. Let that familiar closeness settle into her awareness as she went on to tell him the rest. The protest in Washington, the Sentinels the CSA had sent into a peaceful gathering. “Sentinels,” Steve echoed, voice dulled by surprise and the former SHIELD agent understood that. She'd watched it all happen. Maybe not from ground zero, from the middle of the fight, like she would've if things had been different, but she'd seen it happen in real time. Watched it unfold. It was still hard to take in, to reconcile. How the hell did you reconcile something like that? Not by what Carol and Tony and Hank had called it. A response to a credible terrorist threat. Acceptable collateral damage. Bullshit. Even from across the ocean, she'd known that's what it was. She'd been an operative too damned long not to. Under her hands, she'd felt Steve tense. Muscles going rigid as she laid it out and his eyes turned back to the wall. Back to that thousand yard stare. Posture stiff, like that was all that was holding him together and maybe it was. Too damned much. All of this. God. Dammit. Sharon tightened her hold on him a little more, hand squeezing his shoulder. “I remember that term,” he said sounding as tense as he felt, though his voice was steady. That was Steve, always determinedly steady. Sometimes she thought it would be easier for him if he didn't always hold himself to that so doggedly. "I know." So did she. It was a term you used for one thing. Military action. Peacekeeping measures. Preemptive strike. Call it whatever you would, it all came down to one thing. "After that day, it was hard for anyone left to keep seeing this as anything but what it's been. A war," she acknowledged. The day when eyes started opening to what had been happening here for months. Leaning in, she drew him a little closer, slipping her other arm back around him and just holding him again. She could do that even if there wasn't much else. |
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| Steve Rogers | Mar 30 2015, 10:15 PM Post #53 |
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The Man Behind the Shield
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Sentinels. They’d sent in Sentinels, to a protest on the National Mall. Maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised by that; he’d seen the aftermath of something very similar barely more than an hour ago. He’d been doing what he could, alongside everyone else there, to pull survivors from the rubble. But that was today. When he contemplated then - what… four years ago? They’d sent in Sentinels, perhaps even in his name to a protest that had his friends in the midst of it. That had their friends into it. And then afterward, if what Sharon was telling was true (and of course it was true. It was Sharon saying it), the people who had ordered it, their own friends, had called it necessary collateral damage? Staring at the wall was a poor way to contain his thoughts. Steve did know that. Still, it was what he had. Sam was dead, and the reason for that was that his own country had decided to let its own citizens get killed by weapons of destruction, then use the lies that called it ‘necessary’. Acceptable. He knew that term. “I know.” The press of Sharon’s hand against his shoulder was still a real thing. A comfort, if he could only remember how to make himself let it be. That… wasn’t easy though; it never had been. Maybe he’d never really been that much better at letting her in when the world began to slip away from what he had a hold of than she had for him. Maybe he should be better. No. No maybe about that. Not after what they’d promised each other here in this room. Not after his son. He wouldn’t have that kind of marriage, Steve promised himself, turning his eyes back to Sharon - even rimmed as they were by moisture he couldn’t will or blink away - as she began to speak again. She was here. He’d be here with her. “After that day, it was hard for anyone left to keep seeing this as anything but what it's been. A war," she acknowledged. “A war,” Steve echoed. A war, that came with what he’d already heard people today call a ‘Resistance’. The people he’d seen who’d got him out of that cell, and the people who’d been in DC. Jess. Clint. Whoever that Cajun, Gambit, might have been. Jen… Darkstar, of all people. Teenage girls and female doctors. How many lives had been dragged into this war, in this generation where there was almost no one who had any idea what it was like? Peter Parker, today. Sam, and Hank McCoy, and Marc Spector four years ago. How many had lost their lives? Sam. Without speaking, Steve bent his head, leaning in to the steady home of warmth and light and love that was Sharon and letting his cheek drop down to rest against her hair. Breathing in the scent that was her, and her alone, and had always been her, for the seconds he needed to make the size of everything he felt fit back in with the world again. Sam was dead. He’d have to find a way to accept that. But for now… hearing about the war that had started could wait just a little longer. “You said…” he began then, voice hoarse in the quiet of this room, until he swallowed back the constriction that was gripping his throat. “You said he went back.” He could feel the moisture still in his eyes, but Steve ignored that, keeping his voice steady. “After James was born. Was… he was there with you for that?” he asked, though he knew he didn’t need to. |
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| Sharon Carter | Mar 31 2015, 04:46 PM Post #54 |
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He Who Hesitates Is Toast
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Of course he remembered that term. Steve had seen war. Not skirmishes. Not a peacekeeping presence. Real, in the trenches, bloody, unforgiving war. Heard the same justifications. All the 'reasons'. Bullshit. She'd known it then and she knew it now. And so that's what she told him. That she knew, as he sat there, tense and closing in on himself in a way that was familiar, too. In the way he had of pulling it all in, trying to hold it - get control of it somehow - and Sharon wondered again if this, all of this, one thing piled on top of another, wasn't just too damned much. Too much, too fast. They'd always been too good - both of them - at that pulling in. Pulling away. Steve might be more subtle about it than she was, but she'd seen it now and then. Or maybe they were just bad at figuring out how not to do that and that they didn't have to. Didn't need to. That wasn't what she wanted. Not now. Not with Steve, when there was this second (or maybe it was closer to third or fourth or fifth, but she'd been called stubborn more than once and maybe she could admit there was a point in that) chance. Old instincts might die hard, but she didn't think Steve wanted that, either. Then he came back to her, from where ever he'd taken himself, blue eyes turning back to hers. That spot behind her rib cage ached again at the look on his face. The way his lashes were wet-rimmed. God, had she ever done anything that was harder than this? Telling Steve that Sam was gone and why and watching it rip at him. Exactly the way she'd known it would. Another friend lost and that never got any easier, especially for Steve. He'd carry them all with him, every loss, for as long he was alive. Like open wounds that never quite healed over. He always had. It was who he was and she loved that part of him, too. Looking back into his eyes - this man she'd loved since she was barely more than a rookie Agent, fresh out of SHIELD training - Sharon slipped her arms around him again, and finished the thought she'd started. That day - the day Sam and Marc and Hank McCoy had died for no damned reason at all - was the day that what was really happening finally seemed to start sinking in for the ones left. It was a war. “A war,” Steve echoed and her head bobbed once in confirmation, though she knew she didn't need to. He'd seen it first hand (thanks to a few people she'd still happily strangle for taking him into that, despite knowing exactly whose choice that was and how much luck they wouldn't have had getting him to do anything else). If anyone would recognize that for what it was, it was Steve Rogers. His head bent, cheek resting against her hair and she tightened her hold on him. Drew him a little closer. Let things go quiet again while he took whatever time he needed to filter that. Compartmentalize it. Start to deal with it the way she knew he would. Not all at once, but a little at a time until it was something close to manageable. “You said…” Steve began again, voice rough. “You said he went back.” Voice steady this time, but one hand stroked slowly over his back all the same. “After James was born. Was… he was there with you for that?” She smiled a little, then. Knew there was more than an edge of sadness to the expression. One that matched the memories. Bittersweet. "Do you think he gave me a choice?" the former Agent asked rhetorically. Though, to tell the truth, she hadn't really fought him on that. She'd have never asked him to stay, but Sam knew that. He'd just stayed. "He was there," she confirmed, letting the smile fade away. Letting the solid, sure presence of Steve make the memories a little easier to relate. "The whole time, right up until James decided he'd waited long enough. He held James before I did," Sharon added, "Handed him to me right after he was born. Then he swore he was never doing anything like that again because it was the most terrifying thing he'd ever seen." The doctors hadn't known what to make of that, or Sam, but even exhausted as she'd been she'd had to laugh at him. In a way, it was the next best thing to having Steve there. Turning her head so that she could see Steve again, the corners of her mouth curved up again. Just a tiny bit. "Sam was crazy about James. He'd sit by his crib or hold him tell stories and even then James would watch him like he was hanging on every word. He even changed a diaper or two." With a lot of fanfare and some dramatic grumbling to go with it. "He stayed the first couple of weeks, until he knew we were settled, then he went to that protest rally. I don't think I ever told him how grateful I was that he was there," she added, blinking her own eyes to try to clear her slightly blurring vision. She'd thought there'd be time for that later. |
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| Steve Rogers | Apr 4 2015, 05:20 PM Post #55 |
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The Man Behind the Shield
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For a little while, the only thing he’d allow himself to be aware of in the world was Sharon. Not for long, he knew it couldn’t be for too long, but for a little while. So there was only her. The softness of her hair against his cheek. The strength in her grip, tightening around his shoulders, keeping the distance between them as close to nothing as it could be. The scent that was hers and hers alone. A little while, that was all. After that little while, it was easier again to summon his voice back out of whatever hollow of grief it had fled to, and to speak again. Not of the ‘war’ she’d mentioned, though. Not yet. First, he wanted to talk, and to hear, especially hear, more about Sam. Sharon had said… that he’d gone back. After James was born. That implied - was he right about this - that he’d been there. With her? When that had happened. He knew even as he asked that he didn’t need to, but still, he had to ask. There was a smile. A soft, sad smile, faded from the shadows of what had happened, but a smile, nonetheless. ”Do you think he gave me a choice?" the former Agent asked rhetorically. “No more than he ever did,” Steve agreed softly, thinking of the man that had been his best friend. Sam had always been his own man, one who thought for himself and did what he thought was right. He’d never waited for anyone else to tell him what to do, or let them change his mind if he still thought his reasons were the right ones. And he was a good man, and a good friend to Sharon as much as to him. He would have been there. “He was there," she confirmed, letting the smile fade away. Still staying close, letting the contact between them serve to fill some of the gaps for which words would never really be sufficient. It still didn’t sound like it was easy for her to speak of it - it couldn’t be, just knowing how difficult it was to have the easier, listening side of the equation. “The whole time, right up until James decided he'd waited long enough. He held James before I did," Sharon added, "Handed him to me right after he was born. Then he swore he was never doing anything like that again because it was the most terrifying thing he'd ever seen.” Steve smiled, even though the smile that came to the corners of his mouth was a pale imitation of the one he might have liked to be able to make. He could hear his friend’s voice still, speaking the words Sharon was relaying, and the mix of dead seriousness and wry humor that was as much a part of Sam as his gifts and the triple-sized heart. Words eluded him, for a reply, but he held onto the smile. Anything less than that would have felt like a betrayal of their friend’s memory. After a brief pause, Sharon continued, picking up a little more trace of a smile on her own lips as some of the tightness in her voice ebbed away into the next memory. “Sam was crazy about James. He'd sit by his crib or hold him tell stories and even then James would watch him like he was hanging on every word. He even changed a diaper or two.” Steve lifted one eyebrow. He could see that, though only if it had been accompanied by a lot of lip service to complaining to hide the truth of how ready he would have been to help. “He stayed the first couple of weeks, until he knew we were settled, then he went to that protest rally. I don't think I ever told him how grateful I was that he was there," she added, blinking back what looked like a film of unshed tears that had come to her eyes once more. Steve leaned in, holding her a little more tightly for a moment. “He knew,” he assured her, not even a sliver of doubt to mar his certainty on that fact. “He always did.” Expressing her thanks, especially for the things closest to her heart, had never been something that had come easily to Sharon. Sam had never needed to be told that. That too was a part of who he was. Someone who did, rather than talked about doing, and someone who looked for and appreciated that in others. That was Sam. Or… yes. That was who Sam had been. Taking another moment to let that fresh sting of reality hurt and then settle into the numbness of a new acceptance, Steve held his silence for another few seconds before speaking. “Are his family still here?” he asked then, eyes back on Sharon’s. “Do you know?” If she did, and if they were, then there would be at least one thing he could try to do for his friend’s memory, the way that Sam had done for what he’d thought was his. |
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| Sharon Carter | Apr 5 2015, 06:00 PM Post #56 |
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He Who Hesitates Is Toast
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Sam. Sam had been there. Did Steve think he'd give her a choice? It wasn't a question Sharon needed an answer to, but one came anyway from the man in her arms. The man who had her in his arms. While she told him how he'd lost another best friend. Not why. There'd never been a 'why' that had made enough sense to be a reason. “No more than he ever did,” Steve agreed softly and, no. No more than Sam ever did. He'd been a good man and a good friend and sometimes that meant not listening to her, or to Steve, when he didn't like the plans or the answers. So Sam Wilson had been there. He'd been there through all of it and those memories put a lump back into her throat that Sharon had to swallow around. He'd been there to see James come into the world, hold him. Handed him to her, impossibly tiny and wrapped in a hospital blanket, and swore it was the most horrifying thing he'd ever seen and he was never doing that again. Making her smile when she'd thought she was too exhausted and too much a jumble of conflicting emotions. It drew a smile from Steve, too, the same as it had from her that day. Wan and pale, but it was there and that was enough as she met his eyes. Stroked her palm slowly over his back. Knew it would've been enough for Sam, too, as she told the man she loved about his friend and that two weeks with their newborn son. How Sam would tell him stories that, even as a tiny baby, James had seemed to drink in. How he'd changed a diaper or two as she watched Steve's brow lift and heard Sam's voice in her head. As clearly as she'd heard it then, deep voice grumbling about it while James laughed at him and kicked his feet and Sam grinned at him when he thought she wasn't paying attention. Two weeks. He'd stayed until he knew she and James would be all right - and until he knew she knew that, too, though he'd never said as much - then he'd gone back. To that protest rally with Hank McCoy and Moonknight and then Sam was gone, too. Gone without her ever telling him how glad she was that he'd been there. Jacqui and Joey, of course they'd been around then, too, but it hadn't been the same, then. Her arms tightened around Steve as he leaned in, holding her more securely again and she determinedly swallowed down the growing lump in her throat. She'd had years to deal with this. Grieve and work through it. Steve had had minutes. Sam might've been gone almost five years, but for Steve it had just happened. Right here, right now. “He knew,” he assured her, not even a sliver of doubt to mar his certainty on that fact. “He always did.” Nodding, Sharon tightened her arms a little more. Of course he'd known. Sam had always known and he hadn't needed her to say it, but she still wished she'd been able to. "Yes, I know he did," she agreed softly. He'd known Steve. He'd known her. He hadn't needed to be told, it wasn't who Sam Wilson was or who he'd ever been. He'd never done anything for the thanks or the recognition. "I'm so sorry, Steve." It wasn't the homecoming he deserved, or that anyone would've wanted for him. Sam most of all. It was reality, though, and there was nothing to do but try to accept it. Right or wrong. Fair or unfair. It was something Steve would do, and she knew that, too. It was who he was. But he didn't have to do it alone. “Are his family still here?” he asked breaking the silence and his eyes coming back to hers. “Do you know?” Another nod and she lifted a hand to comb her fingers back through her bangs, pushing the long, blonde strands back away from her face absently as she ordered her thoughts again. "Yes, they're here, still. Sam tried to get them to leave, early on, but they wouldn't." As determined to not let anything chase them out of their city, their neighborhood, as Sam had always been himself. "His brother, Gideon, and his sister, Sarah." She pulled the information from memory after a few seconds thought. "Two nephews, Jim and Jody. I've tried to keep tabs on them over the years," Sharon explained. Because she'd wanted to and because it was what she thought Sam would've wanted. With the way things were, it hadn't always been easy, but she'd managed more or less. "They've had to move a few times, but they're still in the city." Hand going back to his shoulder and squeezing gently, she offered, "It should be relatively easy to find them." He'd want to, that wasn't even a question, and so did she. And they should, now that they could. For so many reasons. |
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| Steve Rogers | Apr 9 2015, 10:39 PM Post #57 |
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The Man Behind the Shield
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No, Sam hadn’t ever needed Sharon to put her gratitude into words. Steve didn’t need to think to be sure of that, because he knew that their friend had always known that the times it needed to be known, whether or not Sharon had managed to get it out in words. He knew she knew that too, and she confirmed that now with a nod, even while her arms closed tighter around his. “Yes, I know he did," she agreed softly, which made it Steve’s turn to nod. Yes, she knew it, just like he did. It didn’t make it any easier to live with, but still, it was good to hear the words out loud. To have the chance to say it to another person, more real and more secure than the same words bouncing back and forth inside the echo chamber of your own mind. Sam had known. Sam always would have known. That was who… he had been. And he was gone. “I’m so sorry, Steve.” That broke a brief silence, and it took Steve another second or two before he had hold enough of himself to speak. “Yes,” he said softly, looking inward for some better words that he could or should say at this point, and finding none of the ones he might have wanted. “I am too.” But it was a fact. A fact that he would learn to accept, because he had to. For now, numbness might be the nearest he could come to that, but even that Steve knew for what it was. A step in the process. The others would come, eventually. Now, though, a different question, but one that he needed to ask. Both for its own sake, and because he knew it was the one that Sam would have been asking, had he been in this position. His family. Sam’s family. Were they still here? Did Sharon know? He met her gaze as she raised her eyes, and pushed her hair back away from her face, nodding in confirmation. “Yes, they're here, still. Sam tried to get them to leave, early on, but they wouldn’t.” Steve nodded too. Again, but what other way was there to reply to that? Of course they wouldn’t. Any more than Sam would have ever left this city, his city, outside of the reason that had taken him to England. New York - Harlem - had been his place. It was hard to imagine that being any less true of his siblings. “His brother, Gideon, and his sister, Sarah.” That was right, and Steve nodded again, summoning the pictures of the younger Wilsons to his mind. When he’d first met them, they’d been teenagers. They’d grown up fast though. Faster than Sam liked, sometimes, he’d suspected, but they had that in common with their brother too. “Two nephews, Jim and Jody. I've tried to keep tabs on them over the years," Sharon explained. Sarah’s boy, and Gideon’s too. How old must they be now? Steve tried to think that through for a moment, and found that he didn’t much like the shape of where the math was going. Instead, another nod would have to suffice, while Sharon took her time to find more words to say. “They’ve had to move a few times, but they're still in the city." Hand going back to his shoulder and squeezing gently, she offered, "It should be relatively easy to find them.” “Good,” Steve replied, with less coherence than he might have liked. He caught that though, and found his focus in the steady, slender hand that was resting on his shoulder, and the strength it held in its quiet grip. “Thank you,” he added, looking back at her. Not that it was for him that she’d done that, but it was what he needed to hear. Sam was gone, but at least they could try to do for him what he would have - what he had - done for them. That… was all that could be said right now about that. So Steve thought again, trying to gauge and canalize his thoughts back into something that wasn’t spinning just beyond the reach of his fingertips. What next? What did he need to know? Or rather, who? When he put it that way, looking at Sharon, the line of her brow and the way her hair had been swept roughly back out of the way of her face, the answer was simple. Or rather, the question was. “What about Peg?” |
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| Sharon Carter | Apr 11 2015, 04:05 PM Post #58 |
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He Who Hesitates Is Toast
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There should be more that she could say but, if there was, she couldn't decipher what it would be or should be. She'd always been geared more toward actions than words. Letting those speak for themselves. Words weren't as concrete, as reliable, as that. Too often, words failed. They way they did now, when all there was was to tell Steve how sorry she was. Sorry that he'd had to loose another friend who'd been that close. Sorry that Sam Wilson hadn't been here with her, where he should've been and would've wanted to be, to welcome him home. So sorry that this is what he'd come back to. “Yes,” Steve said softly, after a few seconds. Seconds that she could practically feel him pulling himself together enough to say it. “I am too.” He'd work though it, she knew that. Knew him well enough and long enough to know that he already was. Working to accept what neither of them could do anything about and move forward. Move to the next question and that one was easier to find words for. Sam's family. It was information she had and that was easier to relay. Practically her entire adult life had been the gathering, relaying, and acting on information. Yes, Sam's family was still here. Still alive as far as she knew and she didn't think that would've changed since the last time she'd checked. Sam had tried to get them to leave, years ago, but of course they wouldn't and they hadn't. Not any more than Sam would've left, if it hadn't been for her and for James. They were as rooted to this city as he'd been and Steve knew that, too. She didn't need to see his nod as he followed along to know that. His brother, his sister. Two nephews who were...older than she wanted to think about right now, weren't they? The boys she vaguely remembered from the once or twice she'd seen them wouldn't be little boys anymore. They'd been forced to move a few times as things in the city got progressively worse, but they were all still here. Still alive. Still sticking to their city with that same, stubborn tenacity of Sam's. They'd be easy enough to find. “Good,” Steve replied, distant. Maybe preoccupied. For once, she wouldn't take it personally and he caught himself, anyway, the way he nearly always did. “Thank you,” he added, looking back at her and Sharon squeezed his shoulder again. Managed a tight half-smile, but it was genuine at least. It wasn't hard to follow his probable line of thought. They'd make sure Sam's family was taken care of. Silence descended again and Sharon took the time to pull her thoughts back together. Drag the scattered leaves of memories back from where they were littered over the last five years. There was more. There was a lot more. Things he'd need to know and that he'd want to know, if she knew Steve Rogers even half as well as she thought she did. She'd like to say they'd dealt, or were dealing, with the worst of it, and that was true in some ways, but... Sharon glanced toward the file where it lay on the bunched and twisted covers. They'd only touched the surface of what was in there, still waiting. When she turned back, Steve was watching her. Doing it in that way that told her there was something else on his mind. “What about Peg?” he asked, explaining that look with those three words. Should've expected that and she drew in a breath as her hand slid down his arm, slipped into his larger one. Felt that familiar ache of sorrow again. Not sharp, but dull this time. Faded and flat. Stale, like a lingering hint of perfume in closed off room. The blunt prick of a loss you'd accepted as inevitable before it came. Aunt Peggy. "You know Aunt Peggy," Sharon began, holding tight to his hand and features creasing lightly. "She wanted to wade in and put everyone in their place single-handedly." Stop all this 'nonsense' as she'd put it. There'd been a time Sharon believed she could've actually done it, too. By sheer force of will alone, but by then- "Her health wasn't what it used to be anymore by then," she continued, the hint of what wanted to be a smile slipping away again. Steve knew that, too, she thought. Even if Aunt Peggy had still been doggedly refusing to admit it or to slow down. "I still had to fight her tooth and nail for months to get her to leave the US, but she finally gave in." It had struck her as a little strange at the time, but not that strange. Peggy Carter had always been very much her own person. Later, though, that vehement, almost out of place refusal had made more sense. "She was in England a few months when I realized something really wasn't right," she pressed on, remembering the strange bouts of confusion, sometimes anger that came out of nowhere. "We saw specialists. Several of them. They all said the same thing. Alzheimer's." Tightening her fingers on his larger ones, she shook her head, meeting Steve's eyes. "There were treatment plans, medications, but eventually she didn't recognize me anymore when I came to visit." It was worse than being alone. Sitting in the same room with the woman who'd had so much influence on who she was, the person she'd become, and knowing that the Aunt Peggy she'd known was already gone, even sitting a few feet away. It was the loneliest feeling she'd ever had. That was something she'd been glad Steve hadn't had to see, even if he might not see it that way himself. He'd loved Peggy Carter, though - once, a long time ago in the middle of a war - and she'd rather he remember Peggy as that determinedly fearless girl who'd left her home in Virginia to go into the middle of a war and join up with the French Resistance. Or the woman who'd been his assistant for years, once she'd retired from SHIELD. Not the frail shadow of herself she'd been in the end. Aunt Peggy would've rather Steve not have to remember her that way, too. "She died a couple of years ago," Sharon picked back up quietly, swallowing down the tightness in her throat and stroking the pad of her thumb over the back of his hand. "When James was about two and a half. We buried her in France. I think she'd have liked that and they were honored I asked. The French, they never forgot her." But then no one did who'd ever met her. Aunt Peggy had been one of a kind. |
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| Steve Rogers | Apr 16 2015, 10:16 PM Post #59 |
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The Man Behind the Shield
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Sharon’s eyes were back on her file, the one that was lying on the rumpled bedclothes. Considering whether it was time to turn this over to a list of facts, and data, perhaps. If she was, maybe that was the right thing to do here. Maybe it would be easier for both of them, to be able to step into the cover of a sheaf of paper to put between themselves and the emotions. But though his eyes followed hers to the folder, Steve couldn’t get his mind to follow with it. He wasn’t sure he was ready yet, to dress this in a cloak of impersonal. Sam wasn’t the end of that. He wanted - needed - to know about… who? A moment’s fumbling thought, and the next name was there, on his lips quickly, as if it should have been there to start. Perhaps it should have, at that. Peg. There was a pause. An intake of breath, and a stillness that overtook Sharon for a moment before she moved again, and then only to slide her hand down his arm, fingers curling around his in a gesture that Steve didn’t need to think to return, letting his own hand swallow her smaller one and close around her slender fingers. The look on her face gave him the end of the story, if not the details of it. No happiness there. No tragedy, maybe, but no happiness. “You know Aunt Peggy," Sharon began, holding tight to his hand and features creasing lightly. "She wanted to wade in and put everyone in their place single-handedly.” Even feeling what was coming wasn’t quite enough to prevent the corners of Steve’s mouth from tipping upward into something like a smile. That was Peg, encapsulated. “I remember,” he murmured. “She tried that with me a time or two.” Including at least once in the last few months before the last night, when the city had gone mad, when she’d told him, in the no nonsense way that the years since the war had only seemed to let her grow into, that she thought he was posturing, rather than working to do any good. She’d probably been right. But she’d also… “Her health wasn't what it used to be anymore by then," [Sharon] continued, putting words to his thoughts before they’d had time to properly form. Steve nodded slowly, pressing his fingers a little tighter around hers as what could nearly have been a smile slipped from her face. Yes, he remembered. The small signs, and the pieces that were beginning not to fit. “I still had to fight her tooth and nail for months to get her to leave the US, but she finally gave in.” That was Peggy too, of course. Everything that had made her someone who would leave her country to fight a war, if she believed in it, would have been keeping her from leaving it when the fight was hers. That had always been part of her - but something, a shadow or a tautness in Sharon’s expression suggested that this time, there might be more to it. Something more than Peggy simply being Peggy. Her health? ”She was in England a few months when I realized something really wasn't right," she pressed on, looking at a memory that only she could see, but that Steve wondered if he might be able to imagine. “We saw specialists. Several of them. They all said the same thing. Alzheimer’s.” Sharon’s fingers tightened on his, blue eyes lifting to meet his gaze with all the pain and sorrow stamped out in stark relief. He could only nod, lower lip caught between his teeth as he hesitated, then shifted his arm to pull more closely around her. Alzheimer’s. He’d seen enough other friends, men he’d known from the war, struck by it since he’d come back from the ice to guess at a little at how it could have been. The ultimate cruelty. For anyone, but for Peg, who’d been the woman who more than anything had been defined by her sharp mind, her attention to detail, and her mastery of all the facts that were out there to be gathered… no need to wonder that Sharon would be shaking her head now, as though she still couldn’t believe it. It was hard enough to believe even when it wasn’t an aunt whom he knew had been equal parts support and inspiration, a constant presence and force, for Sharon’s whole life. “There were treatment plans, medications, but eventually she didn't recognize me anymore when I came to visit.” Steve nodded again, hearing the pain in her voice as a raw note that couldn’t be entirely suppressed, however much she might have been trying. She’d lost Peg then, hadn’t she? Whatever might be the case now, whether Peg had gone or was still lingering in some shadowed, cruel husk of herself, that was when Sharon had lost her. He shifted his free hand, rubbing his thumb along the line of her shoulderblade, wishing there was something he could say or do to ease that pain, but knowing just as certainly that there wasn’t. “She died a couple of years ago," Sharon picked back up quietly, swallowing down the tightness in her throat and stroking the pad of her thumb over the back of his hand. "When James was about two and a half. We buried her in France. I think she'd have liked that and they were honored I asked. The French, they never forgot her.” “She was unforgettable,” Steve agreed, wanting to say the words out loud, even though he knew he didn’t have to tell Sharon that fact. France, too… of course they would have remembered. That fight - their fight in the war - might have faded from the memory of the rest of the world in the last sixty years, but there it was not forgotten, and nor war anyone who’d chosen to risk themselves to fight in it. “And yes,” he added, eyes dimming a little as he let himself feel a little more of what the knowledge actually meant, “I think she would have liked that, too.” It was a world that was missing Peg, too. He… wasn’t sure he knew how to believe that yet, but it was reality, and so it would have to come. Eventually, perhaps it would. For now though, enough to know that it must be real, and to see and feel the reality from the look in Sharon’s eyes, and the pressure she still had clamped around his hand. “Sharon,” he said softly, not more than a murmur into her hair, then didn’t say anything more. Instead he shifted his weight enough to let him pull her closer, folding his arms around her in a close embrace. Not the same as being there for her when it had happened. But he could do his best now, at least. |
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| Sharon Carter | Apr 17 2015, 06:09 PM Post #60 |
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He Who Hesitates Is Toast
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Yes, Steve had known Peggy. He'd known her long before Sharon herself had. So he'd know exactly what Peggy Carter had wanted to do. What she'd always done: Wade into the middle of the fray and put them all in their places. Stop all the 'nonsense'. There was the hint of what wanted to be a smile on Steve's face. A mirror of the expression that was on her own, Sharon was sure. “I remember,” he murmured. “She tried that with me a time or two.” Yes, she would've, and Sharon knew she had. More than a time or two through the years. You never had to wonder where you stood with Peggy. Her health wasn't what it had been, though, and Steve knew that, too, she thought and he nodded, confirming that. Aunt Peggy had tried to deny it, tried to brush any concern off as foolishness. Refusing to slow down, but the signs had been there. It hadn't stopped her great aunt from putting up a fight when she'd tried to move her out of the country. If it was a little more fight than Sharon had expected under the circumstances, well, that was Peggy, too. Always independent. Sharon knew she'd inherited some of that of her own from Margaret Carter. Her father had never been very happy about that, but Sharon had been proud to carry on what Aunt Peggy had begun. In her eyes, it was a better legacy for the family name than any estate, or amount of money or social standing. Her intuition had been right and Sharon tightened her fingers on Steve's, that strong, familiar hand enveloping hers. Something hadn't been right with Aunt Peggy. After a few months, it was obvious. There'd been rounds of specialists, second opinions and third ones and then fourth ones. All leading to the same diagnosis. Over and over again. Alzheimer's disease. The words still seemed like a cruel joke of some kind as she said them, looking up into Steve Rogers' blue eyes. Watching his straight, white teeth pull at his bottom lip. Then pull her into his arms again. Closer, as she held onto him and knew that he was the one other person in the world that would understand how awful, how painful, it had been, watching someone like Peggy slowly lose the quick, sharp intelligence that made her who she was. Peggy Carter had never forgotten Steve, though. Even when everyone else had become a stranger, the things going on around her a mystery, she'd remembered those days, in the War. Right until the end, a couple of years ago. She'd buried Aunt Peggy in France and the French had been honored to have her there. They'd never forgotten her, the determined American woman who'd come to fight with them. She thought Aunt Peggy would've liked that. “She was unforgettable,” Steve agreed, and her mouth curved upward at the corners again. A sad almost smile, but a smile of agreement. That was Aunt Peggy. Unforgettable. “And yes,” he added, eyes dimming a little for the woman who'd been a part of his life, too, long before she'd ever known him. In a great many ways, Aunt Peggy was the reason she and Steve had met in the first place, “I think she would have liked that, too.” Sharon squeezed his hand again, meeting his eyes. Maybe, under the circumstances, talking about Aunt Peggy should've felt...awkward, that might be the word she was looking for. It wasn't though. They'd settled that years ago and Peggy had been a significant part of both their lives. Someone they'd miss and someone neither of them would ever forget. She wished James could've known her better. “Sharon,” Steve murmured, and she wrapped her arms around him again. One around his back, one over his shoulder as he folded her into his arms. Held him tight, for comfort and to comfort as her eyes closed, cheek resting against his shoulder. "Steve," she replied softly, arms tightening around him a little more, "Aunt Peggy never forgot you," she told him, voice low. It might not help at all, to know that, but it felt like he should. Know how special he'd always been to Peggy, though she thought he already did. "Even close to the end, she remembered those days with you in France, during the war." When she'd remembered almost nothing else. The disease hadn't been able to take that away from her, at least. Not until it had taken absolutely everything else. Even when it had taken her sense of identity, her dignity. Right up to the point that Peggy hadn't been aware of anything or anyone anymore. "I think she'd want you to know that." |
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3:32 AM Jul 11