The snowflakes that flutter down to Earth, sprinkling over the scene of what used to be Miss Caroline Ann's Preschool for the Exceptionally Gifted, are determined to make Steve Rogers' life a living hell.
They fall into his hair and onto the insulated shock blanket someone, at some point, must have wrapped around his shoulders. Only, unlike most, these snowflakes are stubborn. They don't melt when they come into contact with his scalp or the heated blanket. They stay put, mocking him. You like the cold, don't you?
He doesn't need a shock blanket. He isn't in shock. His violent trembling shakes the ambulance he's perched on, but that's not because he's in shock. That's because he's cold. It's winter, it's cold out, and he's cold. He is not in shock.
The headlines tomorrow and the eight o'clock news tonight, however, might tell a different story. Reporters and camera crews are gathering outside the crime scene tape, stretching their necks eagerly for a sign of him, dispersed between rows of loudly grieving couples and occasionally even shoving past them to achieve a better view. Of course, they won't ask any ex-parents for a quote. That would be indecent.
Tony is on his way to get him. Steve doesn't know how much longer he'll be, because he can't remember how long it's been since he was contacted, because he can't really remember much of anything at the moment.
Except that thirty-seven children and five women are dead. Forty-two people, forty-two innocent lives, wiped from the face of the planet in the split second it would take him to bat an eyelash, because he wasted his time. Dead, because he couldn't save them. He's a serum-jacked supersoldier, and he still isn't strong enough.
That part, he remembers perfectly.
"Mister Rogers?" A petite, mousy paramedic has apparated in front of him. She wrings her hands, as if she's afraid he'll smash her into a pulp for disturbing him. And why shouldn't she be scared? If he can crush forty-two lives in a millisecond, what's one more? "I was just wondering if you, um, wanted another blanket. You...look pretty cold." You've got a pretty nasty case of shock and if you're stupid enough to refuse treatment in a real hospital you might as well take another damn blanket.
"I'm not in shock." His voice is icy steel, just like the rest of him. Mousy paramedic blinks.
"I understand that, sir," she acknowledges. Even nervous, she sounds frustratingly placating. "But I just think you would really be a lot more comfortable if - "
"I'll be a lot more comfortable when I can get out of this snow," he says shortly.
The woman stops wringing her hands and gazes at him with a concoction of pity and horror. He sits at attention, dumping snowflakes he's collected on his blanket into the back of the ambulance. "What?" Steve demands. "What is it?"
"Sir, those…" she swallows visibly. "That's not snow. Those are ashes, from the explosion. You're...you have ashes in your hair."
The bile that burns up his throat and onto the asphalt, at least, sends a shock of warmth through his system, but Steve finds that all of a sudden, he doesn't really want it anymore.