Trigger Warnings: Mentions of death, and goes into some detail about the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001. If you feel like these things might be triggering for you, please read with caution.
Matthew doesn't need Alfred to call him. He knows his brother needs him whether he asks for it or not. He takes a flight from Toronto to DC before renting a car at the airport and starts to drive. Security takes forever to get through despite his high clearance level (he isn't surprised) and he gets lost on the way to Alfred's house, but he doesn't think his brother would get mad even if he had the energy to.
He's right.
The door is unlocked, which is already bad enough since his brother makes sure to have the highest security tech possible just for the sole purpose of having it, and here the door is without even a latch. Inside the story continues its sad song, no light, no noise, not a television or a radio or even an iPod. He finds Alfred sitting on his couch wearing a black suit underneath his well-worn leather aviator's jacket, the star and number fifty emblazoned across it as brightly as ever even though the customary smile to go with it is gone. His hair is falling every which way and into his face and his eyes, so wide and blue and bursting full of energy are dull and listless and downcast towards his hands folded in his lap.
"We don't need to do this," Matthew says softly, sitting down next to his brother on the couch.
"No." Alfred's voice is blank, dull. "I haven't seen it, Mattie. I went to the ceremonies and the funerals, I saw the memorial when they built it... haven't been here, though, which I guess is kinda silly of me. Saw the rest of it so I dunno why this would be any different. But I haven't been here, Mattie."
"Okay Al," he agrees, because who is he to argue with his brother (and the world's current superpower)? It hurts to see his closest family so broken. "Whenever you're ready we can go."
Alfred doesn't respond for a long time, staring at his hands folded neatly in his lap. Matthew sits beside him until the silence becomes oppressive and even then he doesn't speak because he'll wait to leave until his brother's ready and not a moment sooner. After what seems like an eternity he stands, straightens, pops the kinks out of his back. Matthew stands as well and lets his brother lead them outside, only to guide him to the car at his sudden blindness after changing from indoors' dark comfort to the bright sun outside.
They get into the front seat of the rental car before driving off. Alfred makes a weak joke about how Matthew's Canadian driving is far too polite and therefore not suited for maneuvering about the capital. It's not actually that funny but he's smiling when he says it so Matthew laughs. Anything to keep his brother's spirits up.
At the museum, they pay at the front entrance and weave their way through the crowds. Matthew insists they take the stairs, citing that the line is too long for the clear elevators that give you a view of the whole building as you go up, but in reality its because he's pretty sure that if his brother stops walking he's not going to keep walking. Three more flights of stairs, then a couple of turns here and there, and Alfred's breath hitches slightly in his throat.
It stands a solid thirty feet in height (thirty-one according to the information Matthew read online), the metal beams rusting and partially melted, thick steel cables falling every which way and the framework warped and broken but not quite beyond recognition. Newspapers from a hundred different countries in a hundred different languages are framed and plastered up on the walls screaming out the same headlines and the same photos are emblazoned over each of them. A timeline circles around it and then behind it all Matthew can see scorched cell phones and a firefighter's helmet, twisted fuselage and a chunk of limestone.
"Used to be on top of the North Tower," Alfred says, and Matthew ignores the signs that say the same thing and lets his brother talk, putting a comforting arm around his shoulders. "Great big broadcasting antenna on top of the roof of it, and it was pretty damn impressive." He takes a shaky breath. "I watched it get built, you know. Not the antenna, I mean. The- the towers. Both of 'em. Helped out a bit as well when I was in the area. Help design some of the architecture for the Pentagon, too. Same goes for the White House, both times around."
The words jab at his heart a little bit, but Matthew doesn't comment. They've moved past that. "I know, Al."
"Tom would constantly ask me what I thought of the Declaration. He was never sure if he should treat me as a son or as a king. He tried to do both, it was kinda funny."
And Matthew lets his brother talk, lets him ramble on quietly as they walk around the broken structure and glance at the information and he keeps talking even as they leave the museum and get back into the car. Matthew lets him talk.
It's only when they get back to the house with its dark windows and noiseless rooms that the facade cracks, and the crack is all it takes for the rest to come crumbling down. Matthew holds his brother in his arms and lets him cry (silently, of course, because the hero doesn't cry and wonders sometimes if he remembers how). Three thousand innocents dead, the ones on the planes and the ones that burned and the ones that jumped and the ones that died to save others. The heroes that crashed the fourth into the ground (let's roll) and saved hundreds of lives in the process at the price of their own.
Never forget. That's what people say, isn't it?
And they don't.