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You hear it.
“…end of the line.” He says. You couldn’t pick up the first half, blood ringing in your ears.
He looks so sad, you think. Not upset, although he is. But pathetic; weak. You could kill him right now and he wouldn’t do anything about it. He has done his fighting. You haven’t finished yours.
But then you hear it. He says those words and its like a switch has been flipped, something clicks in your mind. You remember the phrase rolling off your tongue. You can hear yourself saying it. But you think: When? A whisper of the past melds with the echo of words in the shape of his voice.
And in all of this time, he has been looking at you. Hs body radiates heat, you can feel his warmth beneath your hand and in your skewed memory of him, a small child always feverishly sick. Don’t touch me. He just watches you, arms at his sides. Fight back. But you also know he won’t this time, he is pleading. He is desperate.
He must be trying to trick you, because there is no other explanation for something so foolish- a last resort such as this. But it is working. You lower the fist you were about to drive into his skull. He goes slack under your grip, as if to say thank you.
Noise erupts from behind.
He falls suddenly and you don’t. There is something familiar about this, too.
You fall, but not by mistake. You let go to reach after him, plummeting without grace into the silent depths.
There is no sound. You can feel your heart as it pumps blood dully through your veins, a muscle in your chest that will surly burst. The reverberations of the carnage above the spinning current create a solemn symphony of noise. You see his silhouette suspended, sinking. His arms are outreached. You know he is dying. You also know that you cannot let this happen.
His body is thick, clothes heavy with silt and water. He coughs as you drag his form to shore, the two of you an unusual sight. You would laugh, maybe, but there is still part of you that says stop, please, stop. Kill him. Stop-.
You leave him there because he will survive and you already regret what you have done.
what have you done?
—————————————
You hear it.
Feet shuffle on a dust-covered concrete floor. One shoe kicks a rusty bolt by accident, and it rolls across the room with a tink tink.
You were put here days ago. Left to either rot or be executed by the agency hunting you down. A type of German secret service, pinning the bombing and murders of several UN delegates on a rogue Winter Soldier.
You are not loyal to Hydra anymore. You’d like to think you never were. You wouldn’t kill innocent people, people who were heads of a global peace-keeping effort.
The man who put you here- who lured you to him, beat you, locked your arm in this vise- knew you did not perpetrate the bombing. He wanted to see you crucified. You deserve it. It’s why you didn’t fight back when he put you here, not entirely.
So you sat, cramped, shoulders hunched, sweating, starving for hours. You kept quiet at first out of fear of them finding you, but by the second day you yelled. Hoping someone-anyone who was looking- would find you and end it.
By the third day your head is an unbearable weight on your shoulders. The bench you sit on is making your entire body ache, but you are too stiff to stand and reminded of the pain in the socket of your arm every time you exhale.
A heavy door squeaks open. Two voices mumble to each other. The sudden presence of noise in the days of previous silence is deafening.
Feet shuffle. Rolling bolt.
You adjust yourself, ready for whatever fate lies ahead.
Yet life- in its infinite amount of recursions- has brought him to you.
You don’t think you’ve ever been more happy to see someone. You don’t think you’ve ever been more upset, either.
He steps forward. No, I don’t want to hurt you again, I still haven’t forgiven myself. But he has forgiven you.
He kneels in front of you, ignoring his friend who had tried to hold him back; his friend who is now staring at you like a grenade with the pin pulled. Not everyone has the same amount of trust Steve does.
He hands a water bottle to you, twisting the cap off. You drink until the plastic is empty, scrunching as you drain it. Your throat burns.
—————————————
Later, you are out of the vise. He had called someone to help, someone he trusted. You were too tired to care. Yet time passes and you still cannot stand, leaning on the machine. He approaches cautiously with his friend who still hovers behind.
“Here,” he says, offering you his shoulder.
He gets under your bent, exhaustion-riddled frame, carrying you where your legs cannot. The three of you navigate out of the dirty room. He smells like soap and sweat, his body so close to yours you can’t believe its real.
You think, in all this time, you have done nothing to incur this man’s faith, his complete trust in the fact that part of you is still the person you once were. It burns a hole in your chest and makes you dizzy. But you also think, he has saved me more than once, more than twice. He will not give up that easily.
You squeeze his shoulder and he looks down at you, your friend, your savior, who had pulled you from the murky depths before you two even hit the water; before you had the chance to return the favor.
“Thank you,” you whisper so faint and breathless you’re not sure if he heard it.
For the first time since you’ve seen him, he smiles.
He heard it.