Ambrose listened to Paul's story with the appropriate grunts and shakes of his head and bought Paul a second and third round when he'd finished his first. "What amazes me is that you, of all people, can't find a job in this town." Ambrose looked down into his beer like it held all the answers. "Have you tried Jersey?"
Paul downed the last of his beer. "Yeah. And Long Island, and even Staten Island."
Ambrose grunted. "You're fucked."
"Tell me about it. I gotta stay out of the house all day or else Janice is gonna ask questions."
"You don't think she's gonna ask questions when the Sheriff puts your family out on the curb?"
"Can I just drink a beer in peace?" Paul knew that the criticism was likely to be coming from somewhere, and as much as he didn't like getting chewed out by his old friend it was better than getting a disappointed lecture from his wife.
"I'm just saying." Ambrose shrugged, scratching at his beard. "Listen, a guy told me about this medical trial that's supposed to pay big bucks. It's fifty bucks for the first blood test, and every step you qualify for after that pays more." Ambrose fished around in his wallet for a wrinkly card. "I got rejected after the first round, but fifty bucks is fifty bucks."
"Thanks." Paul felt more than a little sheepish taking the card. It felt like admitting that he was so down on his luck and desperate that, yes, fifty bucks could make a difference. He folded the card in half even though it would have fit just fine in his wallet without folding. He didn't want to look at it while still enjoying the buzz from his drinks. He'd think about it tomorrow. "So… who've they got in my seat?"
Ambrose groaned in dismay. "That's the shit; nobody! Hiring freeze or some garbage like that. The city's swimming in it and they'd rather have the bus sitting in the lot than pay someone to drive it. It's ridiculous."
Paul could relate. "I swear, these suit-and-tie idiots have no idea how this city actually runs."
"No kidding," Ambrose agreed. "This city, let me tell you."
March along, sing our song, with the Army of the free
Count the brave, count the true, who have fought to victory
We're the Army and proud of our name
We're the Army and proudly proclaim
The elevator hummed quietly as it ascended the huge tower, curiously absent of the usual elevator music. Hasn't been turned back on, maybe? It felt strange for Steve to be back at the tower for more than a few hours.
Secretary Ross had been monumentally displeased about the Avengers response time and had evidently called Tony at some ungodly hour in the morning to insist that those heroes on-shift stay in the city. So, the old tower was going to become something like a firehouse bunk, and shifts changing out every four days.
Steve had gotten so used to living upstate. He had gotten used to the changing seasons and the rotating recruits who walked through the door with stars in their eyes. At the tower, he'd been greeted by stacks of discarded cardboard and styrofoam packing material as exhausted teams worked long hours to get the building ship-shape for service.
The elevator doors hissed open with barely a sound, even after many months of disuse. The faint hum of ambient noise still penetrated the glass twenty stories up. Steve dropped his duffel in a chair as he walked into the open common space. "I don't remember it being so loud up here."
Natasha grinned over a bowl of ice cream from a comfortable perch on the kitchen island. "You haven't missed the sweet siren-song of midtown traffic?"
"You get used to it again after a night," Rhodey chimed in from a brand-new sofa next to the wide stretch of windows. It still had a little bit of styrofoam attached with static cling.
Fiddling with a screwdriver and making a frustrated face at a piece of tech, Tony chimed in; "I'll add soundproofing to the ever-lengthening to-do list being written by my ungrateful colleagues, even after I managed to talk Ross down from a literal Soviet-Era red telephone."
Steve grimaced at the thought. "Thank you, Tony, for getting this set up so quickly."
"Have any fun plans for the weekend?" Natasha asked innocently. "Since there's no Sunday Dinner at the farm this week."
"I've got a pile of paperwork with my name on it," Steve answered.
"Fixed it. Stop getting it wet." Tony tossed the repaired armband to Natasha and walked to the kitchen, presumably for a cup of coffee. The man seemed to run on coffee and not at all on food. "Pick a car, Cap; drive around somewhere exciting - pick up a strange woman and do something I might do."
"What about Mab? She seems nice." Natasha asked innocently, scraping the inside of her bowl with a spoon.
"I'm sorry; who or what is Mab?" Tony asked, aghast. "Are you keeping secrets, Rogers?"
"Please tell me you didn't interrogate her when you picked up my phone - and we need to have a talk about boundaries!" Steve exclaimed, but Natasha's grin only widened.
Tony tilted his head. "Friday, Steve is hiding things; get me his messages and-"
"What did I just say?" Steve exclaimed.
"Alright, nobody panic, but I think something's up with the rooms," Sam said, walking into the shared kitchen, "because mine is a lot smaller than it is upstate."
"That's because your room used to be a closet," Rhodey called over his magazine, turning a page lazily.
Sam spluttered in dismay. "You own the whole damn building and I couldn't get a real room?"
"It could be worse. We could've asked you to roost with the pigeons on the roof." Natasha clapped Sam on the shoulder. "See you in four days."
First to fight for the right,
And to build the Nation's might,
And The Army Goes Rolling Along
Proud of all we have done,
Fighting till the battle's won,
And the Army Goes Rolling Along.
Section 3, Subsection 1: Funding of Sokovia Accords to be managed by an oversight committee, composed of members from at least five participating countries, with no more than two members from any single country.
Section 3, Subsection 2: The Sokovia Accords Funding Committee shall arrange for quarterly review of all expenses…
Steve set the stack down, unable to read any more. He braved a glance at the clock on his bedside table - lonely there if not for the red-covered novel Mab had recommended. He would be out of excuses not to return it to the library, being only a few blocks away now.
Standing, he dropped the Sokovia Accord printouts into a pile in a spare chair. The room smelled like off-gassing foam, and it was creeping through his sheets and giving him a headache.
He needed exercise - something to clear his head and maybe make a dent in his pent-up energy. A pulse of excitement drove him to motion as he remembered that, for all its shortcomings, the tower had always been equipped with a spectacular gym.
Perfectly polished floors didn't creak as Steve made his way towards the elevator in the dead of night, and the freshly cleaned windows let the city's ambient light wash across the room with tender breath.
"Tenth floor," he asked quietly as the elevator doors closed.
"Tenth floor," the quiet computer confirmed.
Tony had built a fairly spectacular workout room for his favorite collection of heroes that could just about keep up with their demands, though the punching bags were swapped out fairly regularly. The treadmill could crack sixty or seventy miles per hour if you really cranked it.
The doors opened and Steve's spirits fell. Where he expected to see a wide array of equipment all waiting for his impatient and energetic arrival, instead tape marked the floor where the equipment was meant to be standing.
Of course, Steve sighed internally, they'd only just begun to move back into that towering building. If a mattress and a chair had just barely arrived for his first four-day shift, it wasn't reasonable to expect that something as frivolous as a treadmill would be there, too.
He briefly considered trying to go for a run around the city - something, anything, to let out his pent up energy - but Tony had been none-too-pleased with the media frenzy that had followed, nor the adoring masses that had gathered around the building; all vying for a brief glimpse of their heroes.
The elevator doors closed without him ever having got off.
"Which floor, Captain?" Friday asked.
Steve took a calming breath. "Back to my quarters, please."
The alarm rang between floors, removing the need for distracting exercise.
Then it's Hi! Hi! Hey!
The Army's on its way.
Count off the cadence loud and strong
For where e'er we go,
You will always know
That The Army Goes Rolling Along.
There was a musty smell developing in the air of the Raft. Something wet and stale that had been half-covered by air scrubbers working on overtime but just failing to keep up properly. It grew stronger the deeper he went; like something deep in the bowels of the floating prison was blossoming foul flowers.
As he spent long hours checking in with guards, command, and a few individual prisoners, the smell would fade from his radar. But every time he came back, there it was again with reinforcements.
"Steve! Join us for a hand," Mrs. Ellis invited with a wave, holding up a hand of playing cards. What was it about people that, when idle with a deck of cards around, humanity always defaulted to playing cards?
He was unable to resist her enthusiastic beckonings, but admitted, "I really shouldn't." He almost hoped for a mental excuse to refuse - any hostility from anyone else at the table, or a summons from Sam or a guard - but none appeared.
She scoffed, like it didn't matter to her that she was a prisoner and he was responsible for keeping her there. She nodded to an empty bench at the table, insisting. "C'mon - who's gonna tell you you can't?"
No one, evidently.
Steve sat at the table, one ear half-listening to conversation in the surprisingly cheery group while he kept an eye on the rest of the mess hall. It was largely what he expected from a prison, with a few notable exceptions.
Even with suppressors glittering and humming on every prisoner's wrist the guards kept ample distance; watching from catwalks above and only descending to the prisoners' level when absolutely necessary.
For the most part, however, the prisoners seemed fairly calm and in good spirits. Playing cards and mild exercise seemed to be favored activities, with nearly everyone forgetting the incidences of violence that led to his team being called in.
"Who is that?" Steve asked, nodding towards the far end of the mess hall. Walking in a casual circle around the edge, flanked by two much larger men, the older man looked like he was out for a stroll in the park. He smiled easily at everyone he passed, who seemed eager to get out of his way with a speed that implied physical threat, even though Steve couldn't see one.
Mrs. Ellis looked up from her cards. "That's Mr. Volkov. Ivan. Don't ask me what his deal is - I haven't the foggiest idea." She dropped a card and tapped the table for a new one. "He's quite a character, I can tell you that much."
"He bother you?"
"Me? No, he's very polite to everyone. If anyone bothers me it's Lukas here."
"Hey!" her friend protested with a gasp of dismay.
"You won't find any trouble here, Captain." The Aztec shuffled his cards briefly before laying them down, eliciting groans of complaint from Russo and Mrs. Ellis. "No matter what they've told you."
"What do you mean by that?" Steve asked, tensing slightly.
"Miguel! How do you win every time?" Mrs. Ellis cried as the Aztec drew his pile of winnings - a collection of single-serve chip bags - closer with a satisfied smile.
"My turn to deal," he said with a mild smile, taking in the cards and giving them a swiftly skilled shuffle. He tossed cards across the table with practiced ease, dealing Steve in without question. "You playing or watching, Captain?" His dark eyes glittered faintly gold and the suppressor on his wrist hummed shrilly.
It was impossible to miss the clamor of boots on the catwalk behind him - the guards drawn to the sound of a suppressor at its limit - but Steve held up a hand to stop whatever assault was likely imminent.
He held up his hand, leaving it in the air as he considered the message the man across from him was trying to send. Steve's fingers twitched, and settled on the clasp for his helmet. "I'm playing," he said, removing his helmet and setting it on the table.
The distressed screech from the Aztec's suppressor stopped immediately and De Léon smiled, a hand on the deck of cards. "What's your bet, Captain?"
Mrs. Ellis and Russo sat in silence, staring at Steve with the same intense expression as De Léon. What were they trying to say, he wondered? He looked down at his cards: eight of clubs and two of diamonds. "I'm not playing with much," he responded carefully.
"We'll cover you, darling," Russo said, adding four packets of cookies to the middle of the table. "Bet of two for me and the Captain."
"Not much of a bet," De Léon said.
Steve held his gaze. "Nothing in my pockets but my name."
The Aztec danced a card across the table as Lukas knocked for a draw. "Names are important."
Steve met his gaze and could have sworn he saw another glittering of gold, though the suppressor stayed silent. The air between them trembled, shaking with unspoken meaning and an intensity that smothered the musty odor of the Raft.
"Steve." He said it like an offering, like an introduction where he should be holding out an empty hand in a gesture of faith and not one where he was holding cards close to his chest in secrecy.
De Léon smiled. He tossed Steve a card. "Miguel."
"Lukas," Russo said softly, accepting another card.
"Geneva," Mrs. Ellis said, knocking the table.
Miguel tossed her a card.
Valley Forge, Custer's ranks,
San Juan Hill and Patton's tanks,
And the Army went rolling along
Minutemen, from the start,
Always fighting from the heart,
And the Army keeps rolling along.
At the edge of the skyscraper's landing pad that stretched its hand out over the city, Steve stood suspended between man and God. The cold night air didn't bother him, even as the smell in the air fought with the city scents to promise snow. The last of autumn's colors were fading from Central Park, and had already abandoned the Compound further North.
Steve traced the shapes of the streets below with hands too steady for a man running without sleep. His mind buzzed with a reluctant trepidation; a feeling that behind every corner there would be another fight and sometimes that fight was coming up from behind. He felt like he was walking blindfolded; there must be some greater hand working just beyond his sight. He'd never lived in a world without war, so why should he expect tomorrow to be any different?
He wished he could run. He wished he could reduce the flow of his thoughts to the exact placement of his next step, to the precision behind a punch into a weighted canvas bag, to the brief intervals of enjoyment he could derive from this body he had been given.
Steve looked over the city, listening to the sirens wail and the chorus of horns that answered. Symphony of frustration and simmering resentment. People rushing from place to place and just trying to keep up as the hands ticked past. Hands on clocks, on gas gauges and speedometers, on blood pressure cuffs and tracing rhythms. Hands typing on keyboards and whispering numbers under their breaths. The rhythms and hands beat together, beating people into shapes and heads forced downwards. Submissive obedience in the face of unimaginable other.
The question that could haunt anyone haunted Steve. What if? He could see the whole of history past and see every choice laid before him like the city streets below. Every turn left could have easily been a right. Every horn was a cry of alarm or a mortar ripping through delicate earth. His history was a city street in New York, and the possibilities a cluster of all the side-streets and turns not taken.
If he turned his head only a little, over the dark river and into the bright boroughs beyond, he could only wonder what lay out in the vast reaches of his future. What turns and detours might lead to future regrets?
An alarm rang, the sound cutting through the low background noise of the city and the whistling winds around him. He turned away from the city and the ponderance of his future. Steve returned to the warmth of the building, already barking orders as his team emerged ready for whatever challenge they were being sent forth to conquer.
But the thoughts always returned, waiting in the moments of pause and ringing like the single bell that sets off the cacophony. The bell rang, silence impossible, singing: what if?
What if?
Then it's Hi! Hi! Hey!
The Army's on its way.
Count off the cadence loud and strong
For where e'er we go,
You will always know
That The Army Goes Rolling Along.
At least it wasn't raining. That much saving grace was all Steve could ask for as he took off his helmet to rub at his eyes, trying to ease the pressure building behind his eyes. For all the insistence that the heroes live in the city to cut down on response lag, it still took forever for the Raft Transports to arrive in midtown.
"Captain! Captain Rogers!" The call cut through the mild murmurings of Steve's team and the Raft Response team, and it was all he could do not to groan in dismay. At three in the morning?
He turned, finding a familiar face coming far too close. "Hunter Jansen, From-"
Steve cut him off sharply. "From the Post-Standard, I remember. You really shouldn't get so close to the landing pad; it's not safe."
"That would make it much easier for you to avoid me, wouldn't it? If you'd just answer a few questions…" The reporter looked so eager, even for the inhuman hour.
Steve wanted very badly to turn the man around and march him back to the street. On the other hand, he knew that would blow up very badly on news websites in under and hour. He gave in. "You have until that transport lands, Mr. Jansen."
The reporter perked up, shoving a recorder in Steve's so fast he had to recoil or else it would have smacked him in the nose. "Right! What would you say is the greatest challenge facing the Avengers these days?"
Steve blinked. Was he serious? "That's your question, Mr. Jansen?" He'd been hounding Steve for weeks to get a quote, and he'd all but given away his question like a parent lobbing a ball underhand to a child for the first time.
"Captain Rogers, I'm here to ask the tough questions!" Mr. Jansen insisted, pushing the recorder closer.
Steve put his hand on it, gently but firmly removing it from his face. It clicked, then; the reporter's eagerness, naivety, and his odd ability to appear whenever Steve or his team were waiting on the landing pad. "Mr. Jansen," he said slowly, trying to peel the bitterness from his tone, "has it ever occurred to you that you're here because you don't ask the tough questions?"
Men in rags, men who froze,
Still that Army met its foes,
And the Army went rolling along.
Faith in God, then we're right,
And we'll fight with all our might,
As the Army keeps rolling along.
Section 14, Subsection 1 : Detainee records are to be maintained by - Steve rubbed at his eyes as the words started to swim across the page. He needed a run. Or maybe he just needed sleep in a bed that didn't transmit the exterior noise up a metal frame.
He jumped slightly as his phone pinged with a text.
N: Tony wants me to tell you to behave.
Natasha had attached a link to an online article, but Steve didn't even need to click through the thumbnail to know what it was about. Captain America Dismisses Freedom of Press!
S: I'll fix it, he replied before immediately tossing his phone onto his nightstand.
He rubbed at his face as his headache intensified. He'd have to figure out exactly how to fix it in the morning. It was impossible to keep up with all the ways he was expected to be a pinnacle of perfection, and it was growing harder every year. He did his best to stay silent around the press and limited his time walking around the city. The last thing he needed was a series of reprimanding phone calls from Tony or the Secretary - he'd been subject to a particularly strong dressing-down after offhandedly mentioning in the presence of recording devices that he enjoyed his days off.
Captain America didn't get days off. Captain America loved freedom and pie and never slept if there was justice to be won. Captain America needed to present as the perfect golden boy who loved everyone except who the government told him to lock up without a trial.
Steve could feel the weight of the world pressing him down into the still too-new bed that still smelled like foam and toxic chemicals. He could hear the world screaming up at him in horns and sirens, but he couldn't understand if they were yelling for his help or yelling at him to leave.
The world screamed and the wind howled. The screams peeled off his false layers, took off the muscles and the strength and left only little Steve, trying to fight off a Hurricane with trembling fists.
Rushing to the center of the Hurricane, falling through intensifying winds that buffeted him like a paper doll, he could feel Death himself reaching out with bony hands. Here it came, at last. Here it came; drawing him in with a promise of rest and a promise of silence.
But the screaming storm clawed at him, battering his mind and his body, drawing him down into the spiraling agony formed of his failures.
Then it's Hi! Hi! Hey!
The Army's on its way.
Count off the cadence loud and strong
For where e'er we go,
You will always know
That The Army Goes Rolling Along.
Steve woke up when his shoulder hit the floor. His breath shuddered and he found himself drenched in sweat. Papers strewn around his bed showed the fight he'd tried to keep up in his sleep, and that he'd lost to the paper but beaten his headboard into submission.
Steve stood, thankfully not needing to disentangle from the sheets this time. He pulled at the covers to strip the bed, but his phone fell to the floor with a distressing crack. He examined the screen hastily, not wanting to have broken the slender device, but as he lifted it the screen glowed with an unread notification.
Not Natasha, not a further chastisement for his poorly-considered comment, but from Mab, three hours ago.
M: What do you call a duck that's also a doctor?
M: A Quack
M: I had to read that terrible joke and now so have you. You're welcome.
Still cold with sweat from the nightmare, Steve stared at the phone's glowing screen and a faint smile ticked at the corner of his lips.
S: Did you have a good week?
Steve stared at the little keyboard. That was stupid. Another poorly thought-out comment that made it seem like he was ignoring her weird joke, or any other horrible possibility.
He moved to delete it, but the backspace button was inconveniently right next to the 'send' button, and some technological gremlin decided that his message should be sent. The message sent before he could stop it.
Shit. He thought about sending another message, but what if that woke her up? What if the first one woke her?
A little bubble appeared at the corner of the screen - Mab was replying. It vanished. Then it came back. Then it vanished again. Shit!
His phone rang and Steve nearly dropped it. "Hello?" he asked quickly.
"Let me read you the worst sentence ever written by mankind." Mab's voice was barely distorted by the connection. "Are you ready?"
Steve sat down on his bed, holding the phone to his ear. "I'm ready."
Mab cleared her throat. "For the first month of Ricardo and Felicity's affair, they greeted one another at every stolen rendezvous with a kiss — a lengthy, ravenous kiss, Ricardo lapping and sucking at Felicity's mouth as if she were a giant cage-mounted water bottle and he were the world's thirstiest gerbil."
Steve laughed. "That can't be real."
"It's so real I think my brain is bleeding. The office got me the book as a joke but I think I should just set it on fire to put it out of its misery." She didn't ask about why he was awake so late, and he didn't ask her either. They were two candles, afloat in paper boats and drifting downriver.
Steve couldn't think of how to express his appreciation, so he let the question go unasked. "Maybe they were trying to get you to appreciate the works they ask you to read?"
"Or torture me for my failure to meet deadlines. Here," Steve could hear a shuffling of paper as Mab changed books, "it gets worse."
"Do you have a stack of books around your bed?" he asked teasingly.
"Don't judge me. I read for a living," Mab snipped.
He grinned. "Oh, I'm judging."
"Yeah, and what do you keep at your bedside? Wait - let me guess; it's completely bare except for an alarm clock."
"You're only half-right."
"An alarm clock and a book."
He had to give her that one. "You made me read that book, so that's cheating."
She dismissed his excuse. "Right, right. Anyway; listen to this one."
Mab read through a few lines she'd marked in several books, her voice changing as she read in each new narrative voice. Some voices were sad, and single lines enough to break your heart. Other voices adopted accents and he could almost see them parading around in their fictional worlds.
Something about Mab's voice was made for storytelling. In speaking, she maintained a peace with her voice like a calmness of being. A still pool of clear water meant to scry secrets of the universe. But in reading - in translating page to spoken word she came alive; finding a voice in every character and bringing worlds to life just behind closed eyes.
Before too long, Steve leaned back against the headboard. Time drifted away and he sank lower to rest his head on a stack of pillows. He'd stopped responding to Mab's readings, and his breathing had evened as his eyelids drooped lower.
He was fast asleep, phone trapped between his head and the pillow, when Mab gently closed the last book. Even breathing lingered on the edge of gentle snoring, drifting through the connection to his listening friend. Like being the secretive conch whispering sounds of the sea, knowing that a curious ear was cradling the gentle shell and dreaming of distant seas.
"Sweet dreams, Steve," the sound called through him; a tender voice from another lonely ship sailing on turbulent seas. The storm was carrying him, filling his sails and pushing him forward as he adjusted his sails and used its power to crest the waves and fly.
A/N: The ominous dread intensifies.
I just need to say, for the record, that I find it wonderfully endearing that every single one of you just wholeheartedly believe and fully accept that Steve will be taking Mab to Bucky and Alice's wedding. Without question. My friends… Steve still believes that Mab thinks he's an average Joe!
;)
I love my reviewers!: LisaPark, cameron1812, nekokairi, Xanderseye1, cHoCoLaTe-RuM, LucyBlue, Guest, K Lynx, huffle-bibin, Daisy, and Gammily!
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