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Steve hears the gunshot too late.
There is pounding in his head, insistent and grating. It gnaws at him from the inside, the sounds of sirens and guns bleeding over into each other and inching away at his skin; begging to be let out and wreak havoc on the world. His entire soul, right then, felt heavy. He feels wretched blood coursing through his veins, poisoning him at every pressure point.
He feels outside of his body, limbs uncooperative and mind murky with disorientation. A strong arm forcefully elbows him from the side, knocking him over to the ground. His entire body crumbles like sandpaper.
Suddenly there are multiple hands going over him, voices shouting over each other, anger morphing into rage. In the haze of the chaos, he thinks he faintly makes out someone furiously yell tie him down! we need more men! along with a more distant but desperate cry of get up cap! and then oh my god nat are you—
Steve wants to tell them force wasn’t needed, because he would no sooner tear himself apart. He wants to tell them to bind him as much as they want, hold him captive for all of eternity, isolate him from this world that kept shifting from right under his feet until something would right itself again.
Everything felt suddenly off-kilter, only this time he didn’t have it in himself to be the one on the balancing pole. To be the protective alloy and cage the world into safety. He didn't feel, himself, secure.
The smoke clouds had muddled over the spot where he stood on the cobbled road, leaving fine wisps of dust in its wake.
Bucky was alive.
No sooner than someone pushed him into the back of an armoured truck, a forceful hand struck out to tear the doors open.
Steve watches in quiet bewilderment as Sam barrages himself down the galvanized steel corners of the vehicle, knocking down at least five heavily-armed guards in the process. He feels a strong gush of wind break away at his face, just in time as he sees Sam use gravity to his advantage and propel him outside of the car. He lands with his foot planted on the ground, but it feels like it was going to give any moment. He didn't feel stable enough.
“What, were you dozing?” Sam grins, placating and maybe even a little smug. His mechanical wings were beating down the earth, like a steady pulse going back and forth against the pressure.
When all he gets in return is a distracted thanks from Steve who turns to look in the direction of the highway where the car had just hightailed from, a firm hand on his shoulder tells him to let it go. He looks over at Natasha, and knows instinctively it wasn’t the time.
It’s not until Hill gets them to safety that something does give.
They’re trekking through a small patch of woods towards the supposed safe house, thin blades of grass sneaking its way into their dirtied clothes. Steve walked ahead, his normally rigid posture sagged in discomfort and the lines of his body in obvious tension. He was disillusioned and distracted, that much they could tell. He didn’t look like he registered anything that happened in the last hour, like his brain was still playing catch-up and his body worked on autopilot to make up for the difference.
The grace period had waned, their lives not in dire and imminent danger now, but they knew: his was a high never going down.
Even Hill turned to them and gestured to Steve, a silent question of whats up with this one in her expression; to which Sam only shrugged with a don’t ask me.
A groan came from somewhere beside him, and Sam tries not to curse because the one good arm he had supporting Natasha was starting to strain from the discomfort at having held up most of her weight for the past hour. He had taken his fair share of rough-housing back there, too, but she was the one who took the most visible hit. It was a wonder Steve wasn’t going all mother hen on her, really.
“How we doin’ over there?” he grimaces, looking down at her bleeding form. The gunshot wound on her shoulder had been churning out blood since he saw her nearly passed out by the end of the street at the same time Steve was nearly in the process of being taken into custody. All of that combined forced him to think on his feet and fast.
“M’okay, Sam,” Natasha replies, but her voice came out wispy and weak. Frail. Her face had paled considerably and she looked like she was going to pass out any moment. “I can.. I can walk from here. S’okay, really, you can put me down.”
Like hell he would.
"Rogers!" Sam yells, and he can tell that's what does him in, because Sam doesn’t usually last name him and almost never yells. He hefts Natasha closer to his side, blood spilling everywhere. "A little help here?"
Steve turns, but it doesn’t come back to him instantly at first. A small frown rights itself on the corners of his brows. His eyes map both of them carefully and with measured distance, jagged and battered as they were, like he was trying to remember where and when he met them and if they belonged to the then or now, but: “Nat?” he says, and then it clicks: “Natasha.”
It’s almost comical how quickly he came back to himself.
How the sight of her bruised and bloodied was all he needed to. Steve breaks the distance with three long strides, arms already coming up to cradle her head. Natasha is so delirious with pain and significant blood loss, she doesn’t even register him hovering over her.
"Is she gonna be okay?"
Sam chuckles, maybe a little bitterly. “How nice of you to ask, Cap,” he hands her over carefully and doesn’t miss the look of relief that passes over Steve’s expression once she’s in his arms. “I checked the wound already. Through and through. Your girl’s gonna be alright if we get a med-evac on her right away.”
But Steve wasn’t listening to him anymore.
“Nat?” he prods gently, and it’s easy, the way her small frame slots into his almost without hitch; the mold of his body re-carving itself to fit her. He is at the here, then, with her. “What can I do?”
“It’s alright, Steve,” Natasha manages to reply, head falling back against his chest. Her entire body eased up almost instantly, in a way that told Sam she spent what minute energy she had left in her not to overimpose herself unto him; but for Steve, she didn’t need to. “I.. just got a.. a little shot s’all.”
“A little?” Steve nearly shrieks, making sure not to jostle her. “You’re covered in blood!”
Natasha moves her mouth to interject, a rebuttal already forming, but Steve beats her to it. “Hill!” he looks up, yelling over her in a frantic tone. “How soon can we get an EMT on her? She’s bleeding!”
Maria doesn’t look back to regard him. “I have eyes myself, Rogers. Romanoff can take it for a few more minutes. We’re almost there.”
“You hear that, Nat?” Steve looks down, searching her face for any other signs of discomfort. Her eyes fluttered close in and out of consciousness. “Hill said—”
“Pretty sure she also has ears, Romeo,” Sam quips, some of the unease now dwindling down. He falls into step beside them. “Took you long enough to notice, though. Mind telling me what happened back there?”
Steve takes this moment to finally look at him. His eyes were still a little muddled with uncertainty, but the telling signs of worry filtered through. “I got.. I got sidelined for a bit. Thought I saw a ghost or something.”
Sam blinks, not expecting that answer. “A ghost, huh? Didn’t think you believed in stuff like that, to be honest.”
“No, it’s not that,” Steve returns, adjusting his hold on Natasha to make her more comfortable. She was limp and unconscious in his arms. “I just.. I don’t know. I don’t exactly know what I saw just yet. But I don’t believe in ghosts of the past or nothin' like that.”
“Well, what do you believe in then?” Sam asks.
Steve glances down, and his expression softens. “The now.”