He's been sedated before, plenty of times, even in varying degrees, from just relaxing his body enough so that whatever is to be done to him can be done, to all out sleeping for multiple days. And part of him hates it, how he watches everything just stop and black out, but another part loves it, because it's so good of a feeling to wake up, and still be exhausted, so he can go back to sleep a few minutes later with the assurance that everything's okay. But sometimes, when he wakes up, it doesn't seem good, because instead of short, honey brown hair and hazel eyes smothering and cooing to his tired body, it's a tangled mass of short, tear soaked blood, and green eyes grayed with tears. And he knows what's wrong, he knows because it's happened before, but that's not why he cries. It's not because he can envision her bloody, broken body. It's not that he can feel her pressed against him, gasping and trying to utter out a phrase, while he clutches onto her with his life, holding broken dog tags, and bloody arrows strewn about him. It's not even because he remembers seeing her on a table, with countless tubes, wires, tubes, and wires, tubes... and wires, sticking to her, keeping her alive. It's not even that.
What breaks him is that it all happened, for real. The worst thing imaginable wasn't a dream this time, he wouldn't thrash and wail in grief in his sleep, and wake up. In a soft bed, with soft covers, and sometimes he'll hear a moan, a cry, in the room two doors over, and however faint it is, he'll sit up, and pull on a less sweaty shirt, and see her. Not even to comfort her, it seems. Moreso how he needs to see that she's still there, she's still breathing, she's still healthy, she's unharmed. She isn't this time. Because instead of walking into her room quietly, he tears out the needles and wires, needles and wires, needles... and... and
He won't see her peacefully asleep, he doesn't see her crying, he's running in some direction in clothes that never belonged to him but do at the same time. They're papery and uncomfortable on his skin, and he feels the white shirt staining with tears because he can't find her, he doesn't see the honey brown hair and Hazel eyes. He tries to breathe, he tries, he tries... He can't. He can't breathe, red blood and grieving green set him down, and coos to him, but he can't hear, he couldn't hear from the start, everything is just a blur. All he can sense is delicate yet deadly fingers brushing over his face, curling into his hair and slowly easing his pounding heart. His pounding heart... And he remembers why he woke up, he knows what's not there, and he stands, and lets himself be guided to another room, because red blood and grieving green know what dying purple and darkening gray need more than anything right now.
And she slowly guides him to the new room and he sees it, there's his captain, his leader, bandaged, bruised, damaged, but awake, and he sees the sun, and he wants to curse the sun, because it's shining too brightly in the sky, it seems too cheerful to be highlighting honey, and no hazel.
He named her after what he needed, because God knows what her real father was doing, he whispered her name, all that time, yet so little time, because she's only sixteen, old and young, lack of experience.
Hope
He stumbles in the room, the names are thrown back at his face, Natalia, Natasha, Nat, Natalie, widow, ballerina, holds onto his arms as he struggles to sit. Cap, Captain, Rogers, Steven, Steve. That's what he called him, he knows that name, he can't feel it in his mouth, and he sees them stand and talk, Steve has trouble.
Broken nose, broken ribs, cracked pelvis, sprained neck, internal injuries to liver. He pinpoints the damage to the captain, how was he more damaged than her? He thinks. He can't hear what they say, nothing but a few words
Silent
Stupor
Coma
Grieving
He knows they're talking about him, he knows that he's in shock, is he in shock? Or is he still dreaming? He doesn't know, he doesn't, he can't, think, right now. All he thinks of is how tired he is, and how the sun, the cursed, cheerful sun, has slipped behind the clouds, billowing up with sorrow like his heart. And the honey glow leaves, and dulls down to glossy gray and brown, and still no hazel.
Hope
Doesn't move, doesn't flutter her eyelids with dreams, she is cold like a stone, worn away with water. And he feels it, coiling up in his stomach, the rancid bile of woe that springs up and shatters his heart beyond repair
"Not waking up"
The last thing he can hear before the lump in his throat threatens to choke him, and the tears in his eyes flood his cheeks, and he leans down and deftly presses his lips to her forehead, a tear falling and landing on her cold cheek.
All he wants to do is hold her, and listen to her breathing steadily as she drifts off in his arms, he wants to listen to her laugh and see her smile, he wants to be with her to erase the damage that's been done to her. He wants to hear the beat of her heart that's still somehow full of love, when it has only touched hatred and malice to all but a few. He wants her eyes to flutter open, to look his way, he wants her to smile, and say his name, and fall asleep in his security.
But that moment doesn't come, and he doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know what to do without her
Hope