There is a myth where she is bound to a rock, facing monsters from the deep.
There is a myth where she loves no one but the silver mystery of an adventurous moon, and strings destiny to her bow.
There is a myth where she tastes death redly on her lips, and follows its taste to her doom.
.
He has never seen Peggy like this—only soldiers. Men crumbled like dust on the battlefields of Europe, pinned and twitching as she is now.
The rod pierced her through the hip. He does not know if it killed her.
(He does not know.)
.
"I'm alright, Daniel. I'm alright."
She can barely speak, for pain and shock, but those are the words she manages to get through her teeth. Her jaw is set like steel.
"Peg, you're—" He hazards another glance at her side, at the dark stain spreading outwards. Time is all that matters. "Peg, I've got to lift you."
"I—you'd better get Mr. Jarvis."
Damn Jarvis. Damn Samberly, and all the ones who aren't here yet, the ones with aren't slaves to a crutch and the cruelty of the past. "We've got to get you out of here. Whitney could come back—you could—" Well. He can't really bring himself to say what they're both thinking.
A spasm jerks through Peggy, shoulders to knees, and she swallows a gasp.
"I'm alright."
"God, Peg. Stop saying that." He reaches down—this is not how he imagined ever putting an arm beneath her shoulders, but to hell with him if he is letting himself think of that now—and braces himself on his knees. God help him, his bad leg is already going stiff. "Peggy, can you put—can you put your arms around my neck?"
It hurts her terribly—if Daniel Sousa knows anything, it's all the things that pain can do to someone's face—but she links her fingers together and holds tight. Her hands are cold, damp with sweat. Her fingernails scrape against his skin, and he can't think of that now.
.
He never should have gone if she was just going to follow him.
He never could have left if he truly believed he'd never see her again.
.
"This is going to hurt."
Pressed against his collar, she whispers, "I know."
He lifts.
Grown men would scream, would beg at that kind of pain. He's seen it all before. And maybe he begged too, somewhere in France, when they tired to dig the shrapnel out.
Peggy's nails dig into the nape of his neck. Peggy muffles a strangled sound into the line of his shoulder, and shudders tensely, containing her agony in that iron vessel she makes of herself, inch by fired inch.
Ever stoic, even till—
.
If this is the end, he will not leave her.
If this is the end—
He has been crippled once before. He knows what that feels like.
That is not like this.
.
She's bleeding. Not as badly as he feared, but badly enough.
If this is the end—
He throws caution to the winds. He shouts for Jarvis as he has never shouted before.
And perhaps Whitney Frost is still prowling in the darkness of the halls above, and perhaps Peggy's breathing is growing fainter by the second, and perhaps her star-spangled hero would have carried her out with one arm.
But Daniel Sousa cannot afford to live in hypotheticals. Not now. Not when he cannot lift her, cannot save her, cannot do anything but stay.
(He only knows that he cannot let her go.)
.
There is a myth where he steals fire from the gods, to bring light to a world that cannot protect him.
There is a myth where he descends through a maze, following trust like a thread.
There is a myth where he walks past death, and carries his love to the land of the living—
There is a myth where he almost makes it out.