Hello all who may or may not be reading this. I want to thank everyone who has been reading so far, as well as a few shout outs. To Kaiaala, I made sure that I wasn't rushing too much after you pointed it out. To ym41yum1, I went a little into Steve's point of view here. Also A big YAY to Kai-Aala being my biggest fan and Just Dance231 for being my biggest critic (in a good way).
Steve- Getting in Deep
Chapter 9
The sound of machine guns filled my ears. Smoke hung heavily in the air, burning into my lungs like a heavy toxin. The echo of thunder crashed in the distance though there was nothing but smoke in the sky, no clouds to see in any direction. It was different assortments of bombs crashing down onto the field for which we played our game of war. The worst noise to hear was the screams. Either they be from pain or blood lust, the screams would forever echo in my ears.
What scared me most about the whole experience was how addictive the violence became. Of course I was horrified when I first entered the battle, but after being in as many fights to survive as I have in the few years I've been in the army; the rush of it becomes a craving. You begin to feel the most animalistic instincts, full of adrenaline and the victory of the kill. Knowing that you were that much stronger, faster, and more clever enough to spare your own life for that few more amount of minutes, hours, or whatever amount of time you were lucky enough to get. After this exposure, the line between terror and bravery is wiped away.
My mind was back in Austria, during my first mission to save the rest of the 107th. I was surrounded by tall pine trees, blocking out the sun. I moved like the fog through the trees, not making a sound. A familiar scream drew my attention. It wasn't one of pain, but more like one of surprise. It drew my attention south ward.
When I made it to the clearing in the trees, I saw a girl with brown hair sticking out of a baseball cap. She was covered in blood from multiple bullet wounds. She was surrounded by four men, guns still trained on her. Mere seconds later, I had successfully targeted the men, but instead of seeing red, I saw blue.
I didn't truly get what was going on until the girl started talking to me. I finally recognized her as Denver, my newest friend at the University. It was the twenty first century and not World War II. I was Steve again, and no longer Captain America.
A few hours later, I found myself sitting in my apartment's living room. I kept remembering things I didn't want to remember. Like when I lost Bucky from the train, when he fell those thousands of feet down to the frozen river. Or when I was setting up my first date with Peggy, knowing I would never make it as the ice became all I saw. It seemed that all my worst memories were surrounded by cold. I found myself shivering. I walked over to the gas fire place. It was remarkable how it was able to light by a simple flick of a switch.
My phone buzzed from the charger. I walked over. It was a text from Denver.
'What's up, Mister Steve? I'm bored!' Was all she said.
It took a while to text her back since I was still unaccustomed to the phone, but I finally managed.
'I'm just sitting here. I'm about to order something for dinner.' I texted back, while smiling at my achievement. Take that Tony and all your technology jokes.
'Wait, don't do anything. I'm inviting myself over. I'll make dinner.' She texted.
I found myself sitting there with nothing to do but twiddle my thumbs. I had my music playing in the back ground. Duke Ellington rolled softly through the small apartment. It reflected my depressed mode. The feeling was like glue that you couldn't wash off. It stuck to you and hung heavily around you.
The doorbell rung, and I slowly got up to answer it. I felt like an old man.
"Took you long enough. These are heavy you know." Denver said, sounding slightly annoyed despite her smile.
"Well are you gonna let me in or what? Waiting for a prettier girl or something?" She teased. I rolled my eyes, a trait I had picked up from Natasha. Then I stepped back to let her in.
She took her bags and set fort in my kitchen, one that hadn't been properly used since I had moved in. All the appliances were new but I hardly knew how to use them. Denver looked around the kitchen appreciatively before washing her hands. She then checked the inside of the oven.
"Have you even used any of this?" She asked, pressing buttons to turn it on.
"Does making scrambled eggs and toast count?" I asked.
"You may be good at art, but you fail in home ec. Sorry for the let down." Denver said, before glancing towards my CD player.
"You're music is kind of depressing. Do you mind if I mess with it?" She asked. I just waved my hand towards it with a murmured agreement.
She pulled out a small box from her picket which Bruce once told me was a music player. She somehow managed to attach it to the CD player, which was hard enough to figure out. Next, the sound of Count Basie filled the room. I smiled approvingly.
"I thought it was up your alley, but with a little more life." Denver said as she sort of danced away from the player and back to the kitchen.
"Now I'm gonna make you work for your super." She said, as she handed me the handle part of the peeler.
"What are you making?" I asked as I started on the potatoes she had handed to me.
"Something my Mom made me whenever I had a bad day. And from how you looked on the bus ride back, I think you might need it." She said, giving an almost sympathetic look.
We worked in silence for a while. It wasn't an awkward silence like I was accustomed too, but peacefully. The sound of boiling water and the rhythmic stirring of ingredients mixed well with the swing music in the background.
Eventually I found myself stirring white gravy while Denver worked on frying what she called country fried steak. The garlic mashed potatoes were finished and the broccoli was almost done frying in the oven.
"You know I'm here if you ever need to talk, right Steve? You don't have to get personal, but if you need it I am here for you." Denver said out of nowhere, surprising me. Her voice was calm. She would make a wonderful mother someday, she already had the voice. The tone a mother has when you come home all bruised up from a fight with the local bully which seems to make everything alright. The type of voice you hear in the back of your head that tells you right from wrong.
"Yes. I know you will be. Thank you for that." I said, finding a particular spot of the counter very interesting.
"Okay, well it looks like it's done. Let's dish up." She said, instantly breaking the tension. She clapped her hands together like applauding a team before dishing the food onto the two plates. We both sat on the stools at the kitchen counter and started to eat.
"My mom was a great cook. All country styled stuff like this, which she learned from her grandma. My best memories with her are waking up at the crack of dawn on Thanksgiving and Christmas to start making everything. No one but us was allowed in the kitchen all day long. We never made the same thing twice. One Christmas we had Tacos. It surprised my brother Salem and my Dad so bad." Denver said, laughing at the memory. She moved her mashed potatoes with her fork.
"During her last Christmas, we went back to the traditional Ham and potatoes. She was really sick then, but she never looked sick, only tired. She always woke up early with my Dad when he went out to work on the farm, watching him work from the patio wrapped up in old quilts and humming. She always had really neat hair, which waved perfectly down her back. I could never manage that. She said that it came with age." Denver kept telling her voice getting quieter, as if she were dreaming it. All I could do was nervously swing my legs back in forth since they couldn't touch the floor.
"She'd been fighting the cancer for about almost a year then. I did most of the cooking by myself, with her sitting in the middle of the kitchen in a lazy boy like she was a queen. She kept telling me exactly what to do while she stirred this or that on her lap. It was the best dinner I'll ever have. She had her oldies music on the record machine. She always said it gave the music more soul to have it played like that. She could only stand Christmas music in November, when it first starts playing on the radio. Once it was actually Christmas time, she could only stand it when we ate dinner. Now I like to listen to it every hour during December, and I would leave the station playing loud after I was done with the car. Once my mom drove the car, right when she turned on the engine, the music would blare. She would honk the song for a few seconds in the front yard before driving off when she knew I was home. After that, I always made sure I kept it on the station." She said, imitating the horn honking with the plate in front of her with a lazy smile.
"But that Christmas was the best for sure. After dinner, the boys washed up while me and mom made a mini snow man out of mashed potatoes, and then gave it to my dog Ziggy. She's this fluffy Golden Retriever who's the best cuddle buddy. Then we made sugar cookies in the kitchen. Only half of them made it before we broke out into a food fight. Dough went flying! Guess who started? Yep, my mom. She was such a prankster. And her laugh was addictive. You couldn't listen to it and not join in. She was like some kind of elf, happy all the time." Denver's voice got raspy as she swallowed.
"She loved watching me play. When she got too sick to watch, which let me tell you was really sick. She'd go no matter what if she could. But yeah, once she got really bad, Salem videotaped my game. I made the Senior State team that year. My mom was so proud. She said that finally all those years sitting on the bucket was worth it. In May, a month before I graduated, I played the best game of my life. I pitched a no hitter and went four for four on batting. I couldn't wait to watch the game with my mom when I got home." Denver was actually crying now.
"The first thing I saw when I got home was my dad crying. My dad didn't cry. He was a tough cowboy type, like John Wayne. A man that strong has walls like the great wall of china. When something breaks through those walls, it's like a flood that destroys everything in its path. It hurts the man so badly that there is always that crack in the wall, where those emotions keep leaking out. You can never patch it up fully."
She looked at me suddenly. "I think you have walls like that Steve, and I know something cracked through them." I was shocked by how she read me so well. How far in did she see? She continued with her story before I could go any deeper into my own thoughts.
"I knew at that instant what happened. We never said it out loud though, ever. Why say something so obvious? No, instead the first thing he did was asked how the game went. That's what hurt the most." Denver laid her head down on the table now, fully sobbing into the tiles. Her shoulders quaked with each intake of air.
I sat there dumbly for a moment. I then patted her on the back, feeling stupid as I did so. It turned into me rubbing circles in the middle of her shoulders. It seemed to help as her shoulders blades eased down and she relaxed into the touch. She then turned her head towards me, exposing her watery eyes. Her eyes seemed more green then brown at the moment, and so sad.
God have mercy, how did people handle crying girls? It made you feel terrible seeing someone cry like that. It made you want to cry too, and that wasn't a very masculine thing to do.
"Um, my mom liked to make coddle. She was Irish, so she always used potatoes. She also liked working with pork and carrots. She was a great cook. Mainly she cooked soup which was easy to reheat when she was off at work. My dad died when I was younger while serving in the army, so it was just her and me against the world. She was a nurse. She got TB and died when I was about fourteen." I let that hang in the air for a while, not sure what to say next.
"So you're an orphan?" Denver asked, lifting her head from the table.
"Yeah, I guess I am." I said with a frown.
"I'm sorry." She said, while taking my hand into hers. I tried not to notice how hers was longer and stronger than my own. Instead I focused on how warm her skin was against mine. It made me forget about all the cold memories of my past and focus on the warmth of today.
I looked up to see her staring at the hands as well. Her thumb rubbed the back of my hand as she focused her eyes onto mine. She smiled at me then and the warmth only got better. I was having this weird dropping feeling in my stomach as my lips turned into a similar smile.
And then I had to ruin.
"Uh, Denver? You got potatoes in your hair." I said, pointing to the side of her face.
She let go of my hand to touch her hair. When she found it, her head flew back as she broke into laughter. Just like her mother must have had, Denver had an addictive laugh as I found myself laughing along. It may have been the best sound I've heard in years.
I was getting in deep.
So whatcha think? Good or blah? Should I continue or dump poor Steve and Denver?
This is where I start begging for reviews like a dog for scraps. Please please please review. I love advice and future chapter ideas. Also, what are somethings You think Steve would say to Denver? Just cute little one liners please!
As always, thanks for reading,
Nicole W.K.Y.