The day is tauntingly beautiful with its breathtaking vibrance. The sun shines brightly and warmly. Strikingly blue sky stretches like a blanket over the earth. Song birds chirp happily back and forth to each other from their hiding places high in the pulchritudinous green trees of the park. A soft breeze waves in the rich, alive grass. Children's laughter fills the air along with the barking of dogs playing with their owners as though there is nothing wrong with the world. Friends and families bask in the feeling of early summer.
To most people, today is a prefect summer day.
James hates it.
While others around him guffaw and enjoy themselves, James sits on a bench with his arms crossed over his chest, blank faced. Passersby and those around him shoot fleeting glances at him from time to time, doing their best to act descreet. They're not. He doesn't care, though, and ignores them by glaring at the ground near his outstretched legs. He knows that he gives off an air of danger, but he couldn't care less.
All around him, people revel in the first gorgeous, attack free day in weeks.
James hates it.
A hurricane of rage wreaks havoc inside of him. It threatens to spill out him like a tsunami, dressing destroying everything around him. Tears want to overflow and cascade down his cheeks like a waterfall until he's desert sand dry. Screams bubble and claw their way up his throat only to get stuck on the way out. They never reach his lips. Instead, they fester and grow inside his soul, infecting it like a deadly poison.
He wants to scream until he physically can't anymore.
He keeps it concealed by tucking them close to his chest, but his hands shake violently, even his left one, with the urge to hit something. Anything. His heart thrashes and scrapes unrelentlessly against his chest, as though it were an untamed predator attempting to escape the confines of its cage, even though he's merely sitting. His breath practically begs, pleads to be let out in short, untethered, wild spurts, like a dying, broken fountain. With sheer willpower alone, he forces himself to breathe out long, controlled, regulated, calculated breaths. An undying itch rolls and shivers and licks up and down his tense form like a flame, burning his being from the inside out.
He feels jittery, like it hurts too much to do nothing at all. It's not cramping from sitting in the same position without moving for too long. He's a sniper; he's been trained to remain unmoving for hours on end. No, cramping is different, like pins holding him in place. This sensation is entirely different. His limbs themselves feel too heavy to lift, heavier than tons of lead.
He has the compulsion to hurt himself, as though the physical pain will make his emptiness go away. After all, isn't it bettter to feel pain than to feel nothing at all?
Exhaustion has become normal for him. Exhaustion from what? Life. He's emotionally exhausted all the time now. Sometimes, even with his Super Soldier enhanced strength, even the mere thought of getting out of their bed almost seems unobtainable, only a figment of his imagination.
Ever since her death, he's had good days and he's had bad days. Most of the time, the days blur together like white noise, one after another, bleeding into the next. There are days where his throat tightens almost to a close. Some days, he can barely see the first hint of dusk before he's reached his limit. Those times, he can't go a day without breaking down in some way. Whether that ends up being crying or reverting into the Asset mindset depends on his ability to cope that day.
Today is not a good day for James. It's not even an "okay" day. No, today is a bad day for James. Today marks exactly one month after her death. Today is not a good day because today marks her funeral. Today, things will finally be real.
Today, he will finally have to admit it.
She's gone.
As her only family and husband, it was up to him to sort out her funeral and he knew this. He put it off for nearly a month because he knew that the moment he started arranging her funeral, things would start to become real. He knew that the moment he accepted that she would need a funeral would be the moment he'd have to admit that she isn't going to come back. He held it off until he knew it would become disrespectful to her memory.
In a couple hours, he knows that he's going to speak in front of everyone about his beautiful, precious wife.
Up until then, he can pretend. He can pretend that she's not really dead. Even during the planning process of her funeral, he could almost convince himself to pretend that this is all an elaborate hoax of Tony's or Clint's. So for the next couple hours, he can lie and tell himself that he's just waiting for her to return from work and go on a walk in Central Park with him the way they normally did on a Friday afternoon. He can pretend that she's not really gone forever.
Except, he can't do it.
For these last couple of hours, he knows that he can't pretend that this is all just a terrible nightmare. It's not a nightmare. No, it's worse, much worse, because this is reality. He can't wake up and get on with his life. This is his life.
Time passes slowly, but at least it passes.
With every second that ticks by, he watches those around him go on with their lives and he sees her. Every single thing seems to remind him of her. She's there in the children's laughter, synthesizing hers with theirs. The sky reminds him of her eyes. He can see her dancing in the soft grass as if it were only the two of them, forgetting the world outside of their bubble. A runner dashing by has her lush, dark hair. Even the bench that he's sitting on screams her.
This is their bench.
Every week since before their marriage seven years ago, if he wasn't busy on a mission, they would meet at this bench and go on a walk through the park together. Their weekly walk through the park became sacred. If the world wasn't ending and he wasn't away on missions, then their walk happened. Unless one of them was physically incapable of doing so, their walk happened. They made it happen. They would start at their bench and wander around Central Park for half an hour before returning to their bench. Then they would sit together and watch others around them for as long as they wanted.
This is their bench, and it always will be.
The moment that the last flame of life fled his wife's pale form, James thought that life would dull for him. He thought that nothing would ever be beautiful to him ever again. He was wrong, because everywhere he looks, she's there, alive in his memory. She's there with every curl of coffee aroma that slides past his nose. She's there at every Team Movie Night, which she created, in the laughter and the smiles. Sometimes he'll see echoes of the past, and she'll be on their bed, splayed out like a starfish and taking up the entire mattress. He'll see her walk like an Undead into the kitchen, her hair sticking out all over the place and sleep still evident in her eyes, straight for the cupboard where they kept her chai tea latté and start making her own drink.
Everywhere she goes, she's there in some way.
His phone chimes with an alarm, breaking him out of his thoughts. He pulls it out of his pocket and is immediately shown a picture of his wife when he turns the screen of his mobile on. Finally, he allows a lone tear to escape and trickle down his face. His wife smiles up at him with a spark in her eyes, like she knew something that he didn't for once. He stares at her features for a moment before silencing his alarm and storing his mobile away in his pocket again.
James stand silently with a sigh. He turns his head and takes one last look at the bench, THEIR bench. Staring at the place on their bench where she always sat, nestled into his left side, he whispers something quietly. The words that flow out of his mouth are so near silent that even with his enhanced hearing, James can just barely hear them. Yet even if no one else can hear them, it's okay. James knows what he said to his wife and that's enough for them.
Soundlessly, he slips away towards the cemetery where he will say goodbye to his wife one last time, his nearly unspoken words echoing in his mind and in his heart.
Today will be a good day. I love you, my dearest Darcy Barnes.