Rush of Blood
Chapter 6: The Flow State
10:43 A.M. A cup of tea.
As if that's going to help anything.
What with the cold, hungry stare in the man-that-isn't-a-man's eyes burning in Cap's mind.
Renfield.
He feels a slight turning sensation, as if he is slowly spinning around even when he's standing perfectly still.
Natasha pushes him gently, yet firmly, onto a stool along the bar in the kitchen and rummages through a cupboard.
"You don't have to—" Rogers begins weakly.
Romanoff silences him with a single look, and Steve is too tired to argue.
No. Not just tired. Exhausted.
It's the aching kind of exhaustion that gnaws at your insides, almost feverish.
"So what happened in there?"
I am. We are. Coming for you.
Steve snaps back to the Widow.
"Nothing."
"Teenage reticence isn't your style, Steve," the red head smoothly replies. She pours water from the sink into an electric kettle and plugs it into the wall, crossing her fingers before flicking its switch. Luckily, the power seems to be working because the switch glows orange, and the kettle begins to heat.
"I thought you trusted me," Nat says, and, despite being a spy, Rogers detects a tinge of hurt in her tone.
He winces at the counter, elbows crossed. Where to begin? How can he possibly tell her the strange insecurities and horrors racing through his mind?
Well, Nat. Thing is, I woke up late, which never happens. I'm tired, and I think the super soldier serum might be wearing off. And I lost my shield. Oh, and I think I'm going insane. But it's really nothing…
"I do trust you," Steve says, trying to sound sincere. "I trust you with my life."
"Just not your feelings," she shoots back.
Rogers bites his lip and can't think of anything to say.
The lights flicker overhead just as Nat unplugs the kettle and pours its contents into two matching black mugs that broadcast the label "Stark Industries." Romanoff sets a steaming cup in front of him, and Steve is grateful for its warmth because, for some reason, he can't stop shaking.
Cap thinks she's going to keep pestering him, but as their tea cools, Nat graciously switches conversation to other, more pleasant, topics: What Clint said when he woke up—"Who do I gotta kill now?"—to Bruce's somewhat obsessive compulsive breakfast routines.
Despite feeling lousy, Rogers finds himself being drawn into her conversation. As their tea cools, and he sips the warm peppermint thoughtfully, he even smiles once or twice. Sometimes he forgets what it's like to get lost in Natasha Romanoff's eyes, what with all the crime-fighting and saving-the-planet all the time. In moments like these, he's glad to be reminded of them.
"So before you go," she says abruptly. "Tell me what's going on with your hand."
And, just like that, Nat pulls his palm away from where he was part hiding, part nursing it, and examines the bandage. To Steve's immediate embarrassment, blood has already begun to seep through the bandage he slapped on earlier that morning.
"This is where Renfield bit you yesterday, right?" she whispers. Her tone is no-nonsense now. "Steve, why hasn't this healed?"
He cringes and takes his hand back, wanting to give a reasonable explanation but not finding one.
After a beat, Romanoff leans forward. "You have to show this to Banner."
"There you are!"
Rogers lurches around to face the newcomer to the kitchen. His heart automatically sinks when he recognizes the voice before he sees her—Domini Wallachia. In the flesh.
And there is quite a lot of it.
She's spilling out of a little black dress that screams midnight when it's barely lunchtime. Silver heels click on the grey linoleum. Blonde hair bounces on her shoulders, curled ringlets like mini snakes. Her sapphire eyes sparkle with mirth, and the edges of her lips tease upwards as if she knows a secret that Steve can't remember.
"I knocked on your door, but you didn't answer," Domini says and flashes a smile, as if this statement is hilarious by itself. Then she pouts. "Are you going to introduce me to your friend?"
"Yes—umm—sorry!" Steve stammers. "Natasha Romanoff, this is Domini Wallachia. She just started working for Tony yesterday in…"
"Research," Natasha flatly finishes for him.
"Right! Yeah—research." Rogers can't remember if he knew Domini's field or not, but it makes sense that Nat already knows. She isn't a super spy for nothing.
"How do you do?" Natasha's voice is ice as she juts a hand out to the other woman.
"Pleasure," Domini says, the word dripping with fake cheerfulness.
"So," Steve says, and the single syllable seems to linger for an entire sentence's length. "Would you like some breakfast, Domini?"
She titters, a raspy high-pitched laugh. "Oh, I don't eat breakfast..."
Cap thinks he catches Nat roll her eyes.
"…I just wanted to thank you for a wonderful time last night."
Black Widow sets her mug of tea down with a forceful clunk, and Steve can feel his face burning warmer and warmer as he realizes to whom the lingerie in his room belongs.
The lights flicker on and off in the kitchen.
Romanoff gets to her feet in a cat-like motion and sets her mug in the sink, rinsing it out. "Gonna get Barton," she says quietly.
Cap doesn't exactly trust his brain at the moment to form intelligent words. "Okay. Mission?"
"We've got traces of the cloaked ship. We need to investigate them."
"Right. Sure." Geez, you sound like a little kid. "Just keep me updated."
Natasha nods at him but won't make eye contact, and Steve feels a small trickle of blood run down his injured hand through the bandage. For a moment, his heart stops.
Romanoff pauses before she leaves and turns to Domini. "Nice to meet you," she says with a smile that reads "sincere," but Steve knows better. "Say hello to your husband for me."
"I shall," Domini says and beams, but the spy is already gone.
Rogers tries to sip his tea, but the peppermint has gone cold, reflecting the chill of the kitchen. Apparently, the heat is off as well.
He shivers and almost forgets that Mrs. Wallachia is there until she exclaims, "What happened to your hand?!"
Steve Rogers is too mortified over the events of the past five minutes that he can't begin to think clearly. The old Captain America would have pushed Domini Wallachia against the counter and demanded to know the specific details of what occurred the previous night. The old Captain America would have not have slept through a vital meeting. The old Captain America would not have lost his shield and be cradling a hand that refuses to stop bleeding.
Suddenly, like glass shattering over head, Steve Rogers knows he has changed.
"Excuse me," he mumbles, and dashes out of the kitchen before Domini Wallachia can tempt him back with her sultry smile and blue eyes.
11:17 A.M. Art escape.
Whenever Steve felt like a piece of him was going to shrivel up from the many chronic illnesses he suffered through as a child, he turned to his sketchbooks and got lost in the drawings. Pencil shavings blown aside like blowing out birthday candles, the crush of black charcoal under fingernails, the scent of blank paper like clean linen. Sketchbooks opened as a butterfly's wings, catching the light and revealing images of still life seen through Steve Rogers' window as a child.
A girl holding an ice cream cone. A boy selling a newspaper. A shiny new Cadillac V-16 puttering down the street. Pigeons pecking at crumbs.
All the life he could never experience captured forever…
Rogers goes to his room on autopilot. He nearly scalds his injured hand in the bathroom sink before the temperature adjusts back to normal, and then he applies a fresh bandage to the wound before pulling a drawing pad from the drawer in his bedside table and a freshly sharpened pencil.
Thankfully, he doesn't run into anyone on his way to and from his room, and the elevator miraculously hums along as he pushes the button marked R and ascends to the roof of the Avengers Tower.
The sky continues to darken above him, and Cap is afraid the chance of rain will cancel this rare artistic escape, but the rain doesn't come. Steve scopes out his field of vision for the best lighting and picks a spot on the edge of the western roof where a beam of sunlight peeks through the clouds and, stubbornly, does not fade away.
He sinks to the concrete and sits on the edge, allowing his feet to dangle. Heights have never bothered him, and, aside from the cloud cover, the wind is the only annoying variable to this situation. Rogers zips his brown leather jacket up against the chill and opens his sketchbook. Pages flutter briefly before him—a detailed drawing of a rose he found in Central Park, another of his shield (Steve winces at the thought), another of Mjolnir, propped against a coffee table, and a flash of eyes in close-up.
Natasha's face, smiling brightly. Drawn from memory.
Steve turns the page to an empty sheet of paper and begins to draw. He doesn't know what the slightly oval shape will turn out to be at first. Perhaps a still life of an eggplant? Rogers thinks with a half-smile. Or an avocado, or a pocket watch, or a—
Sewer rat.
Captain America spasms and jerks upright. Renfield's voice echoes in his mind and refuses to leave. To drown it out, Rogers hums under his breath and begins to sketch furiously, unrelenting. All other thoughts fall from his mind to the streets of New York below, shattering on the pavement. Steve sketches so he can become himself again, and, at the same time, run as far away from himself as possible.
Steve draws until his fingers are black with charcoal, until his sketches become an ever-widening expanse of graphite, a pool of ink. He continues compulsively, unaware of anything except the need to expunge, to expel this darkness that has seeped into his heart, covering it like the clouds cover the sky above him, shadows.
It is a poison.
As Rogers draws, memories begin to flash in his subconscious, buried deep and still not resurfacing; they are more feelings than pictures.
The slick of black blood—his blood—running down his neck.
A spider crawling through the soft hairs of his forearm.
A chill that hits him like the first cold front of November, taking his breath away.
The distant screech of some nocturnal creature, louder than an alarm clock. Its volume pierces, reverberating in his chest.
Steve finds himself slipping further and further under the oil slick beneath him until he is drowning, gasping, awaiting the words…
Drink what is mine…
"Friend Rogers!"
Captain America startles so badly that he gives himself whiplash, and he groans with the burning pain in his neck, waiting for it to subside. Before him stands the god of thunder, blonde hair streaming down his face, red cape fluttering in the breeze, and Mjolnir in hand, like a figure out of a Titian painting.
"Thor," he croaks. "S-sorry…"
When the Asgardian doesn't answer, Steve looks up to find Thor staring at him with an odd expression on his face, a mixture of concern and confusion.
"We missed you at evening meal time, and so I decided to locate you."
Rogers forces a chuckle. "Nice try, Thor. Why is it that everyone panics when I'm gone for an hour?"
Thor isn't laughing. "It is just past six o'clock in the evening." He raises a hand to indicate their outdoor surroundings.
As if on cue, lightning flashes, and thunder rumbles in the distance. For the first time, Steve realizes just how dark it is outside, with a sliver of the dying sun cracking through the clouds in burnt orange.
Six o'clock…
He looks down at the pavement around him, scattered with multitudes of sketches, pages beginning to flutter away in the breeze as it picks up,
Thor bends down. "Allow me to—"
"No, I got it," Steve says hastily and gathers up all the drawings in a haphazard armful, shoving them into his sketchbook and shutting it with a snap. He preoccupies himself to stop the panic from curling around his spine again.
I lost time. Again. I lost time again. How many hours have I been up here?
When Rogers steals a glance at Thor, he can tell the god of thunder is thinking the same thing.
He is about to speak when a sizzle of lightning slices across the sky followed by a rumble of not-so-distant thunder. Steve shivers and jerks an unsteady thumb at the sky.
"This your doing?" he says in a tone that's meant to be joking but comes across as exhausted.
Thor breaks into a smile. "For once, it's not me."
Maybe it's the fact that Steve is shivering again, but the Asgardian says, "Would you like to come inside? You look unwell. Your hand…"
Rogers stops himself from rolling his eyes with disgust. What is it with everyone being obsessed about my hand? He's about to answer with a semi-annoyed quip when he catches sight of his hand and cringes. Black charcoal stains cover the dirty bandage, mixing with dark red stains of blood that have seeped through and continue to soak it.
Cap hides it self-consciously with his other hand and stutters through an excuse. "N-no, I'm…I'm fine, Thor. Just needed some time to… to clear my head. You know?" He looks up hopefully, panicking, worried that the Asgardian will look into his eyes and see the fear in them.
Thor pauses and, luckily, laughs heartily, clapping Rogers on the back. "I know just what you mean. I too have been deep in thought recently."
Steve's tired brain manages to remember their conversation from the previous evening. "You getting cold feet about popping the question to Jane?"
Thor looks perplexed, perhaps unfamiliar with the metaphor Cap mentioned, so Rogers clarifies. "I don't see you wearing the Midgardian clothes you picked out. You got second thoughts about marriage?"
The god of thunder relaxes and beams broadly again. "On the contrary, my friend. The reason I am wearing my traditional clothing is because I have just come from Asgard. "
Steve's eyebrows shoot up, impressed. Both men move to the edge of the tower and sit down side-by-side, feet dangling into the emptiness below.
"What happened? Was there an emergency I didn't know about?"
"No emergency. My quest there was a joyous one. I asked my mother for something I could take back here, something very precious. She gave it to me with her blessing."
Thor fishes around in one of his pockets and places it in Rogers' hands. When Steve opens them, he stares down at a near-perfect circle. Holding it closer, he can just make out the intricate weaving of two silver bands together, meeting together to wrap around a violet-colored crystal. The gem is so bright that it seems to emit a light of its own, separate from the fading embers of the sun.
"It's…gorgeous," Steve says and manages a smile. "This is Frigga's?"
"It was passed down to her by her mother, and her mother before her. And soon it will belong to Jane, if she will have me."
Rogers punches the Asgardian on the shoulder playfully. "She will."
Steve brings the ring closer to his face to examine it more carefully. Inside the band are a string of runes—Cap assumes they are Norse—and he is about to get a better look at the detail of the bands when something beneath him catches his attention.
There is a too-sweet taste in the back of his throat as he gazes at someone—some thing—that is crawling on the outside of the Avengers Tower. Its movements are inhuman, more jagged, with limbs crossing over limbs, joints sticking out at odd angles. It scuttles sideways like an insect and then begins to climb faster, directly beneath them. Steve suppresses a scream in his throat. It's coming for him. It's coming for him.
Drink what is mine…
The ring falls from his fingers soundlessly, like a crystal glass falling off a countertop in slow motion. Rogers' mouth opens in horror as he sees the violet gem blink and fade into darkness. He lunges after it and subsequently loses his seat on the edge of the tower. Within an instant, Steve is watching the ring fall and is falling himself. Slowly, he tumbles downwards toward the darkness. Toward the monster.
"CAPTAIN!"
His body wrenches backwards suddenly, and he feels a strong grip on his arm. The god of thunder pulls him back onto the rooftop without any effort at all. Rogers remains on his knees, shaking from head to toe.
"Are you all right?" Thor's voice is mixed with worry and uncertainty. He hesitates before speaking again, perhaps consciously keeping his tone even. "The ring…"
Steve's hand, still shaking, reaches out and opens up to reveal Frigga's ring. It is dirtied with charcoal and sweat, but it's intact. Thor takes it reverently from Rogers' grasp before kneeling beside Captain America.
"What happened, my friend?" Thor's voice drops lower, gentler. "You look as if you've seen a—"
"There was something on the side of the tower!" Steve says hastily. His eyes water with the shock of what happened, but he scrambles to his feet, swaying over the edge again just to catch a glimpse of what it was. "Did you see it?!"
Lightning flashes across the sky and thunder rumbles again as Steve peers down at the dizzying sights of the city below, but there is nothing. No monster. The realization that it was all in his mind hits him like a hammer.
Thor catches his arm, trying to ease him back, but Rogers shrugs him off. Breath catches in his chest, and he can feel his cheeks burning.
You're losing control again, Rogers. Not now. Not like this. Not in front of Thor. Not in front of anyone.
Thunder booms around them as thick droplets of rain begin to splash against Rogers' face, blurring his vision.
"I… I'm sorry," he stammers, and then he runs before Thor can say anything or reach out to him. He runs away from the rooftop and the monster and the god and his ring. Steve runs to the safety of the tower and the artificial lights.
Thor is left behind in the pelting rain and flashbulb lightning, his hands at his sides, and Steve Rogers' sketchbook at his feet.
TBC
A/N: Heeeeyyyy there! Anyone still with me? I realize it's been a ridiculously long time since I updated, so thanks for sticking with me and this little fic! Let me know what you think, and I'll send you some virtual cream puffs of gratitude.
~Ista ^_^