Steve meets the Fog (10 years before)
Everybody knows that subway ride is always an immersion into complete anonymity. Under the streets, people go and come like waves in all directions; two seconds after you meet them, they disappear behind corners and columns, corridors and trains, and you will never see them coming again. In fact, you will forget them before the present hour is finished. Nothing is supposed to be relevant or special but that day, one of the rides had been different for Steve, and it started with an innocent woman called Perkins.
Ann Perkings, a strong, big, blonde woman in her thirties was sitting on a train as she does every Friday at six o'clock in direction to the lake. She was thinking about the cozy café in front of the water where she planned to sit alone to watch the romantic couples walking aroud.
A couple of meters behind her, there was a tall man with a cap, a red t-shirt and a pair of old-fashioned glasses, he was trying to look relaxed and to remain unnoticed, but he is always ready for action. Steve Rogers never rests, not even on his free day in which he is supposed to enjoy an almost normal life out of the Avengers compound. He was on his way to the apartment to spend the weekend far from the Missions. In his head, another kind of problems as those in the compound occupied his entire attention. But slowly, the typical boring time on the subway started to change:
Very close to them, another young woman, probably in her twenties, using a blue scarf around her neck to press the long black hair she has. There is nothing memorably on her; just another figure in the train, holding a backpack as it would be a shield while her soft face is turned against the window and her brown eyes look into the darkness of the tunnel. She seems to be concentrated but if you put enough attention now, you could see that something is annoying her.
At this moment, she is trying to stay calm because of all those people around her, men, women and even children are saturating her mind with the worst of the weapons she could describe: "emotions"; each of them charged with its particular energy. In her eyes, a gray curtain, like a fog, starts to appear; she presses her forehead on the dirty window trying to avoid the sight of other passengers but cannot avoid the flavor of acid in her mouth as the companion of bitterness, the burning heat of fury and the heaviness of sorrow. The train keeps going, and the feelings go without permission through her brain provoking an avalanche of sensations that she uses to call: "metro-horror-concert". She cannot control the way she absorbs others moods and the strong released energy from emotions can take control of her own mind. A subway ride always makes her feel sick because it always results impossible to deal with such an amount of energy without making it part of her own. At this moment, the long ride is becoming a nightmare for her, but the train is almost in the last station, suddenly, she starts to feel a breeze of relieve coming from the man standing close to her. She cannot watch inside the train because at this point her eyes are already empty black holes like the darkness of the worst emotions. There is no way for her to see the man with the red t-shirt, but she knows that he is there, her hearth goes faster, she feels that unique breeze and concentrates on letting her in... she recognized Steve Rogers just because his powerfull energy.
All of them remain in their places when the train leaves one of the stations but suddenly, Ann Perkings starts feeling unwell. She starts sliding slowly to one side. Then, she starts shaking until the rest of the people sitting close to her leave their places with some distrust. At that moment, everybody thinks that the lady is having a collapse, an epileptic fit or something similar. Steve stands out and calls for medical help: -"Any Doctors here?"- Everybody hears his voice but nobody answers. There is a light red fog inundating the wagon and without anybody beside to stop her fall, Ann Perkings reaches the floor exactly at the same moment in which the woman with the scarf turns her head and searches for this new disruption on her mind… her right hand feels cold, there is an important amount of heavy energy in the air and she gets shocked when her fingers starts to lose Materia. She understands what is coming: the black fog is coming.
Miss Perkings already lost the color of her cheeks and her lips turned gray while her eyes remain locked somewhere in front of her. The woman with the scarf realizes that nobody is going to help. She feels sick as she realizes the presence of the red fog in the wagon but starts sliding to Ann with an emerging need to hide her own condition. "Nobody is casually feeling unwell in this wagon"- she knows that too well and starts looking for answers like a trapped child. - "Whoever is causing this , I am absorbing the whole f* destructive energy too".
A young man, almost a teenager, with red hair, very thin body and metal eyes, wearing a pair of old jeans and a black hoodie is watching. He leaves his place at the end of the Wagon and slowly approximates while red fog emerges silently from his mouth.
Down on the floor, the young woman is holding Ann's head, and she is trying to place her scarf in the back of her head to give some comfort, but soon she realizes that she has some other work to do. Her eyes are turning darker, and she feels every hair on her head being magnetized for a presence. The redhead is already standing in front of them, there is no mimic in his face, just the red fog emerging and without putting major attention to anything else, he starts to extend one finger to touch Ann.
Steve looks at the scene with little understanding of what is happening: The young Woman blinks and two unusual black empty hole appears, she is busy trying to know what the Redhead attempts to do, suddenly, she makes a fast movement with one arm over the poor Perkings to protect her, a gray Fog appears from between her fingers and she seems to change her attention to Steve. The redhead is now very close and the young woman overrides her own fear and reacts placing her free hand in the wagon's floor where the gray fog turns black and so dense that does not allow Steve to see with clarity anymore. The redhead stops approaching and makes a protesting noise, just like a hunted animal would do it in contact with fire. The woman feels now more confident because she remembered something she had learned some time ago, in the future, where she already has been and had met the most important persons of her life. -"Breath"- she says to her self; Tony Stark's voice remain on his memories, but it is too late, and the redhead is now preparing to get closer again - she enters in panic and then, she starts losing control of her own mind.
Steve could swear that the red haired man was the enemy number one of the whole moment and his attack was being neutralized by the woman, which now, was protecting Ann and waited challenging for a new reaction. As an Avenger he knew too well that some humans and non-humans can possess outstanding capacities and he started to think that this one was one of those situations in which he witnesses one of those incredible things again.
Around them, everybody seems to be submerged in an invisible dimension far from them. The redhead decides to charge again and Steve rushes to Ann while the other two look for their options. -"civilians must be taken out of this"- he thinks. At that moment, the train started to stop again and the woman with her black empty eyes speaks directly to Steve. -"Take her away," says to him, then, she turns into another entity, a black ghost of terrible aspect and Steve is shocked, but he sees how Ann starts taking control of her own body. He lifts her from the floor and the other two adopt a new position in the wagon. Steve knows that position very well: it is the combat position, and it will not take long until someone gets hurt. The doors open and Steve carries Ann in his arms. He places her out of the train but when he is ready to come back inside, the black Fog fills the entire wagon like a wave and the doors close in front of him. On that moment, all the lights in the station go off and the train leaves.
Ten seconds later the lights come back and Steve remembers that this is the last station and the train will come back after making a loop somewhere in the tunnel. He runs to the other side of the platform and waits. Soon, the train arrives, the doors open, and he can smell putrefaction on the air. The wagon is empty, there is blood in the floor and splashed in one of the windows. He can see the red-headed escaping through the multitude, and he knows that he is wounded. He runs to detain him but his feet steps over something. He recognizes the blue scarf laying on the floor and looks into the multitude, one second later, his eyes meet with hers, she is standing close to the stairs still with empty eyes and she had realized that she cannot come back for her stuff without meeting him. She is thinking about running and despairing because this one was definitely not the kind of meeting that she had planned. The next second, Steve starts a persecution through all the tunnels and stairs from the station until she seems to slow her steps. -She seems to give up - he thinks with relieve, and he is right. The Fog had never imagined that her first contact with Steve would be like this, but she realizes that the time has come.
Bucky's shadow
Steve arrived at the apartment still confused about what he had seen in the subway that day. He had had a very long day and was supposed to arrive earlier, but he was late because he had experienced a weird encounter. All the lights were off, but he knew that his friend was there. He did not like to go out to the streets alone at night because the neighborhood was full of bars and clubs with a lot of people and Bucky hated the multitude on the streets. From time to time Steve had to come to get sure that he was ok and to offer some support for his new life as a free man, but this was already becoming an extremely heavy job because preventing Bucky's mood of sinking more was similar to a fight against an invisible Monster. Bucky seemed to be more and more listless every day and did not seem to fight anymore against his situation. Steve's own sadness was also growing, he was afraid of losing his friend in all that sorrow. He couldn't laugh anymore like before; he spoke little about anything when he was not asked for and had those horrible nightmares that made Steve jump out of his own bed when he screamed in the middle of the night. Bucky was never ok, he was becoming a shadow of the boy he was in the forties because the past as the winter solider persecute him every day.
-You are still awake- was the only thing that Steve could say when he realized that he was sitting in a chair close to the window watching the skyline of the city. – Did you go outside today? -he asked even when he knew the answer very well
-Hi Steve – was his only answer without even turning his face to see him. His hair was messy, he was wearing a pair of old jeans and a hoodie. As usually, when he was alone, he was not wearing his metal arm.
Both knew that Bucky was not a fugitive anymore, he did not have to hide from the world because he had got pardon but still, he was not able to start a life by himself. He simply did not know how to start and was not motivated for that. The only people around him were Steve and Sam. The rest of the family (as Steve called the others in the team) had a lot of respect for his situation, but they considered themselves as Tony's friends and even when they did not object or made a single critic about Steve living partially with Bucky during his free days, they preferred to ignore the Winter's Soldier existence.
Steve thought for a moment about the last years, they had had a civil war, they had friendships broken and tied again, there was an Invasion, and they would have being all dead if Thor had not arrived to Wakanda to kill Thanos. Since then, the long way into the recovery, specially, into trusting each other again had being extremely difficult but necessary. Five years had passed since then, and things started slowly to be more stable. The world was not alone, there were so many enemies outside, and they were needed, At the present, they were still making huge efforts to remain together.
-Did you eat something already? – asked Steve, but again, he knew already the answer.
-Yeah, I got some cookies from the kitchen… Do you know who owns the factory of this product? -Bucky said while he kept the cookie's box in his hand. He was smiling, but that was not a smile of joy, it was more like a cynic wince.
Steve took a deep breath - Stop doing that! – He said – You know that Tony has a huge number of companies, probably he doesn't even know all of them and obviously, me neither, so, I do not buy my stuff and look for possible people hating me behind every cookie.
Bucky saw Steve's frustration on his tired face and left his chair to get closer – You should stop worrying about me Steve, I am sinking ship, and you cannot do anything to avoid it.
Steve hated such kind of words -Sorry Bucky, I had a weird evening today. I'm tired, and I had some questions I have to do to Wanda tomorrow early.
-What happened? – Asked Bucky and started to make a visual revision to look for any signs of possible wounds on his friend.
Steve took his phone and started to look for a number he had saved less than one hour ago. -Sit, I will tell you what happened today in the subway. -Steve started to explain his weird experience, but he omitted one important part of the story: the end.
-A witch? – asked Bucky after he had finished -Did you find a witch?
Steve was confused. - More or less.
-You always met the creepiest people in the entire world -The same smile from before was there because he used to think about himself as exactly that.
Steve did not put attention to the remark, he was busy thinking on the particular encounter with a kind of person that would have made anybody else to run away. Those were not happy circumstances but finally, he had got some answers to his questions and discovered something of vital importance.
He had found somebody of especially good use for him. It was not a secret that he was desperately looking for some help for Bucky's problems, but that was not something that somebody in Wakanda could fix. Not even Wanda, with her possibilities to look into others mind was able to help them. Bucky's problem was of another nature and Steve thought, by the first time in years, that he could have found a possible solution.
-Another Monster for your list -Bucky said and tried to image what Steve saw on the wagon - I already fought almost any kind of humans and creatures but never a Ghost or a Black Fog. Did she look like the girl in that movie? The Ring? With the black hair all going over her head? Or did she look more like an Obscurus? - Bucky spent so much time reading books and watching films, but he couldn't find any comparison for what Steve had described.
-No, she didn't, her eyes were empty and the rest was just like a fog. I did not fight her because she was protecting a woman on the floor. She was not the enemy but that one looked not less scary. - He though then in the second figure that he had seen on the subway, a young man with red fog coming from his mouth and metal eyes, he was pretty much like a devil from an old Tale. -Steve then continued explaining - I only have seen the way she manipulated energy once before.
-In Wanda?
-Yes ... but we know that Wanda uses her own energy, this one was absorbing it from the train's floor. I could see it. I may be crazy, but I swear that the floor was a conductor.
Steve couldn't erase from his mind the image of the black figure with both hands in the train, she had escaped from him as soon he caught the train turning back just after the last station. The other figure had slipped like a wounded animal in the middle of the multitude.
-Are you going to try to find her? - Bucky started to be interested in the matter
-I already did it -smiled Steve remembering what happened next and looking at his phone.
-and?
-I cannot tell you more Bucky... I need more answers before.
That was the way Steve met the Black Fog by the first time, that was the very moment that she was waiting for 740 days, and she was looking for answers too...