The smells were so familiar, though he couldn't place them. They weren't distraction, exactly, but maybe they could have been sooner or later. They fed one of those bubbling brooks under the surface he noticed in the quiet as he waited for his mission. Something about the air, the wafting scents of refuse and cement dust, made some hidden, unnecessary part of him itch with anticipation.
Fortunately he had a mission to distract him, to keep the building moments of confusion away. He could hardly be bothered to wonder why an abandoned warehouse would reach at the drowned things when chaos unfolded below him. It felt strange and surreal to watch it all happen, to watch the combatants go at each other from afar. They fought mostly hand to hand, but the one notable ranged fighter had undeniable superiority alongside the laser turret, and in that chaos, one figure in blue stood out above the rest.
Without thinking, he lined him up in the sights, the familiar shape of a face he'd memorized wrapped in blue-water cloth. He could have him now, shoot him easily, and the mission would be complete at long last, the coda of a song that had gone on far too long. He had his choice of targets, for the shield was on the other side of them, pointed at the ranged fighter everyone but he believed had the advantage. A head shot to be quick, a blow to the torso to be sure, and maybe both to be certain. The longing made his finger twitch and clank.
The blue shifted, the white sand face underneath it turning and drawing, and even in the distance some part of his mind could see those eyes go wide with some uncomfortable feeling that had been shocked out of him. He followed their gaze to the tiny figure in black pinned underneath a foe well over twice her size, staring up with a stony blankness that made him remember the smell of refuse and dust in an alley. For a second, he saw a glint of round, silver metal, but the brief flood of memory receded as quickly as it came.
He trained his sights back on the Captain, gritting his teeth, scraping his fingers on like. He waited until he saw the back of the shield glisten silver behind that blue arm, and then pulled upward, sighted the turret, and fired.
In his peripheral vision, what little the goggles didn't block, he saw a blue head turn rapidly, trying to find him on the rooftop as the figure in black rose. The battle raged on around them, the woman quickly ran to the others' aid, but distant blue eyes went wide as they locked with his. For a second, he could feel the terror, and for a second, it was his own. Then the Captain smiled and turned back to the fray.
The Winter Soldier sniffed and fired above Captain America's head, focused on his mission.