Rewrite
AvalonReeseFanFics
A/N: Happy Hump Day my wonderful readers. Are you ready for EVEN MORE cute things? Cause they are COMING, they are in this chapter! I swear, adding Nahele to the mix really brought out the cuteness. So that 200th chapter is still creeping upon us. And I still need to know what you guys want for your special chapter. Do you want a chapter of all smut? Do you want a future part of a chapter (ie. Nahele getting adopted? Steve and Wo Fat bonding? Rowan meeting her family again?) Do you guys want me to elaborate on a past chapter, or write out an entire chapter on Rowan's past? Is it something I haven't listed? Don't forget to review and tell me what you guys wanna read or I'll have to decide for you! See you guys on Friday.
Chapter 161
Steve had awoken right away. The second Nahele started vomiting. He had gone to the kid's side, finding him bent over the toilet in the shared washroom, he went to help but Nahele hadn't wanted Steve's comfort, he had wanted Rowan's. Steve had tried not to take that to heart, Rowan had spent more time with him, she was the mother figure, it would make sense that he wanted Rowan instead of him. Steve had always wanted his mom when he was sick, no matter what age he was… even when he thought her dead and gone. He'd catch a cold and immediately wish for her, the soup she'd make, how she'd tuck him in a little tighter and how her hands always felt cool against him.
But lying there, knowing Rowan was still in the washroom with Nahele, listing to Rowan's soft singing punctuated by pauses where Nahele would throw up again, left him feeling… strange. Oddly between so fucking attracted to Rowan who was going to one day mother their kids just as efficiently and lovingly and feeling shitty for being in bed, not wanted or needed by either of them, unable to go back to sleep. Kicking the blankets off, he piled them up, picked up their pillows and then went into Nahele's room to pick up his.
He had done this before. He had slept on the bathroom floor with Rowan. He could do it again, no problem. He banged into the room as Nahele hunched over the toilet again. Rowan turned bleary eyes to him as he dropped the bedding on the floor beside her.
"You wanna take shifts?" he asked. Rowan shook her head and he smiled. "Yeah I figured. Well… we both know I don't sleep without you, so I guess we're staying in here."
Rowan absently pet Nahele's back until he finished vomiting and once he was sitting back down, she put a glass of water into his hand as he coughed and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. He looked at the two of them his eyes slightly weepy, clearly in as much distress as a sick teen could be.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. Rowan opened up her arms and he folded into them, resting his head on her lap.
"It's not your fault," she whispered. "How's your tummy feeling now?"
She had her fingers running through his hair and an arm haphazardly draped over his body. "Better… I think…"
She turned to Steve with a sleepy smile. "He's be saying that all night," she whispered. Steve settled down beside them and she dropped her head to his shoulder. "I think he's got one of those twenty-four-hour bugs. At least… that's what I'm hoping it is. Either way he's staying home from school tomorrow or… today. What day is it?"
"We'll call in the morning," he whispered. He wrapped his own arm around Rowan, his hand sliding down her arm until it rested on Nahele's back and the kid started grumbling. Steve withdrew his hand, worried that the grumbling was because he didn't want Steve bugging him. But as soon as he withdrew his hand Nahele's grumbling was even louder so he dropped his hand back to his shoulder figuring it didn't matter either way. But even then he grumbled, until Rowan started grumbling herself.
"What's the matter? Do you need more water?" Rowan asked him, her voice very low, but Nahele shook his head. "Then what? What do you need?"
"Can you sing me to sleep again? Please?" he asked and Steve felt his smile oh yes, yes this was going to be good.
Rowan started singing, that soft lullaby she had once sang Joanie. Steve fell asleep, his head pillowed by Rowan's head, listening to her hauntingly beautiful voice as it sang Baby Mine and then woke up to the sound of his phone ringing.
They had all ended up in some strange sort of position. Rowan was against his chest, Nahele half in her lap, and Steve was up against the bathtub. They were surrounded by an explosion of white sheets and abandoned pillows.
"Steve your phone," she groaned, as Nahele shifted and groaned with her.
"I know, I know," he said reaching for it. He looked at the contact. Joe. Great. He answered it quickly with a sharp: "Just give me a minute."
He pressed a kiss to Rowan's forehead and then leant over to press his hand Nahele's forehead, still warm.
"Since you're up can you call his school and tell them he's not coming today?" she asked.
"Sure thing," he said kissing her cheek that time. She turned and kissed his lips and his heart soared up into mouth. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her he loved her. Instead he said: "I'll get breakfast started for us, plain toast for him, hopefully he can hold it down."
She mumurred appreciatively which just made it harder for Steve to leave her side. But he forced himself up and then out into the hallway. He shut the door behind them so he wouldn't disturb them and said: "Joe, what's up?" There was silence on the other end, so long, that Steve actually check if Joe hung up, which he hadn't. "You there?"
"I am, but I'm a little concerned I called the wrong number," he said. "Uh what's… what were you…?"
"I've had some changes to my family," Steve said. "I can brief you later. Uh… what are you calling for? Are you okay?"
"Yeah, but I have a favour, I'm going to need your help transporting a marine name Lange," he said. "We're flying in today and he's really sick and contagious, we're transporting him to a Tripler Army Medical Center to get his vaccine and cure him. I was hoping you could help me secure armed transport."
Steve sighed he glanced back to the washroom. He didn't want to leave. His kid was sick and Rowan was exhausted. They needed him.
"Negative, I have a bit of a situation at home that I have to deal with."
Joe was quiet a moment. "A situation…" he echoed. "Steven what's… what's going on?"
"Look… the kid… he's not well and Rowan was up all night with him so I don't… you know… they need me here, okay? I can set you up…"
"I was really hoping to have you on point, son, but I understand. Nothing is more important than family…" Joe said trailing off. Steve groaned he could hear the disappointment in his mentor's voice and it was killing him.
"Alright, alright," Steve growled. "Fine. I'll set something up, I'll drive point, but if the kid takes a turn for the worse before I leave, if they call me to come home, I'm out, you got me?"
He could almost hear Joe's smile. "I'll shoot you the coordinates for the landing…" he said and then Joe had hung up the phone. Groaning Steve shoved his phone into the waist band of his sweat pants and then went back into the washroom.
Without Steve there to support her Rowan had slumped down to the tiles, her hand still on Nahele's forehead who was across from her. Carefully he reached in and grabbed her wrist, pulling her sleepy form up and maneuvering her so he could carry her in his arms. She obviously wasn't fully asleep because the second he had her up and she wrapped her arms around his neck and rested her head on his shoulder.
He carried her into his room, dropped her onto the bed and then pulled her face to his, kissing her deeply. Rowan groaned against him and it took all his willpower not to lock their bedroom door so he could ravish her. Since getting the kid sex had been sparse, and while that was frustrating, he wouldn't have traded his new life with Nahele for anything.
"Babe… I… I'm so sorry but Joe called and he…"
"Pulled a favour," she finished for him kissing the tip of his nose causing him to smile. "It's okay."
"No, it's not okay. Nahele's sick, you're exhausted, I should be here to help you… and it was supposed to be my day off," he whispered against her lips. God, just tell him not to go, if she asked him to stay he'd call Joe back and tell him he wasn't coming.
Rowan just shook her head. "Joe wouldn't have called if it wasn't important," she said. "And we both know you want answers."
God, she knew him oh so well. Fuck. It killed him, that his poor tired Rowan would be that considerate. "Trust me," she said resting her forehead against his. "I'll be fine. We'll both be fine. You can go. Save the world."
"Hawaii, we've talked about this, I really only save Hawaii," he reminded her and then straightened. "You'll call me if something goes wrong though, right? Like anything, if you need me, I want you to call me. None of this, I didn't think you'd pick up crap. Leave me a message and I'll call you back. Okay?"
Rowan nodded, lying herself down on the bed that had no sheets or pillows. So tired that she was already checking out. Steve couldn't help it, he watched her for a bit. Just marvelling at how lucky he had gotten. With this perfectly wonderful beautiful girl dappled gorgeously by the morning sun and a pretty great kid too. It was like everything was lining up for Steve to get his dream family.
Still he got ready, kissed Rowan's cheek one more time being sure not to disturb her and then went into the washroom again. He knelt down beside Nahele and softly ruffled his hair until his eyes opened.
"Hey, hey, It's just me," he said when the kid tried to sit up. "Look, uh… Ro's passed out in her room, and I had… uh… I had something come up. You're staying home from school today, okay? And uh… if anything happens or you need me or anything I want you to just call and I'll come straight home, okay?"
Nahele nodded, smiling sleepily at him. "Kay, have a nice day at work," he mumbled before rolling back into the blanket and Steve sighed. He checked the kid's temperatures again, still a little on the warm side and then left the washroom for good.
As he went down the stairs he dialed the number of the school to inform them that Nahele was sick and not coming in before waking up his team to tell them what he needed.
Today was going to be a long day.
H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O
Things were awkward. How couldn't they be? Steve was annoyed. Annoyed because he believed Joe to be on everyone's side but Steven's, most importantly his mother's side instead of Steven's. Annoyed because he didn't want to be leading this motorcade, he wanted to be home with Nahele, who, at Rowan's last text, was up, had managed to hold down toast for all of an hour before it came back up again. He wanted to make sure the kid was eating something, other than the ginger ale slushies Rowan kept making him to soothe his throat, and he wanted to take turns caring for Nahele so Rowan could actually get some fucking sleep.
Joe glanced at him again, the heavy awkward silence had graduated to oppressing by now. Clearly, he wanted to say something but if Steve was lucky, he wouldn't. "So, how's Mary?"
Okay, so he wasn't going to get lucky today.
"Good," he answered, his tone clipped. Not in the mood for this bullshit.
There was an awkward silence where Joe cleared his throat. "And your team, how's your team?"
"Good," he said, being sure to check his mirrors as the awkward silence continued to plague the car. "Got a new guy from Chicago."
"And let me guess… he's good?"
Oh wow, gonna comment on his lack of social skills right now? Really? When Joe had been conveniently AWOL since the whole Doris and Wo Fat situation went down. Well Steve could play along with that.
"Yeah, he's great actually."
"You know, Steve, if I didn't know better, I would swear there was something on your mind," he said. Well the man knew him well.
Steve sighed. "You wanna do this with me? You wanna talk circles with me, huh? You know I got questions."
"And I'm not going to duck them anymore," he told them and then blinked his eyes. "But before we get into that, how's Rowan, I hear she had your kid."
Steve glared at him. He hadn't briefed Joe on Nahele yet, which meant the asshole had dug around and got information. The wrong information at that.
"Had my kid? That not what I told… he's fourteen. He didn't pop out of her fully grown. He's… she's a foster mom, she's fostering him," Steve snapped. "And she's good too, thank you very much."
"So, you and her are doing the official dating thing, now? No more Catherine?" Joe asked.
"Stop avoiding my questions, Joe."
"That's a real shame, I liked you and Catherine together. Honestly… don't trust Rowan much, she's… scary. And I don't say that about people often," Joe said ignoring Steve entirely. "And I just don't see you two staying together, you're all cammo and outdoorsy and she's like… satin, glitter, plus she's a one hundred percent a city slicker there's no way a girl like her could handle the great outdoors…"
Steve turned a glare to him. "Do you wanna shut up?" he asked. "Like seriously… shut up."
"Ohh… touchy subject. You and Rowan having problems son?"
"JOE!" Steve thundered. "For the love of god! What happened to not ducking my questions huh?"
"Well I meant it… besides, you haven't asked one yet," Joe said and then carefully turned so he was looking at Steve. "Now… fire away."
Steve glared at him, but this was his time to get some sort of answer. "Did you know about my mother and Wo Fat?"
Joe nodded. "I knew that she took care of him after his mother was killed, until the CIA found out about it and they forced her to abandon him," he admitted. "And I promised her I would never tell you that."
"So why are you telling me now?"
"Because you deserve to know the truth."
"Okay. Here's the thing, I already got the truth from a very surprising source."
Joe sighed. "Was it Rowan… or Wo Fat?"
"Well… Rowan tried to tell me but I didn't believe her. Doris actually stopped by a few months back, she gave me the cliffnoted version. But I got the whole truth… from Wo Fat."
"Well… wow… I bet that pissed you off."
"Yeah… and if Rowan hadn't intervened, apparently I would have put a bullet in his head."
"Intervened? Intervened in the… in the…"
Ah so he knew about the attempted kidnapping. Wonderful. "In his kidnapping and torturing of me. Yes, she intervened. She got me out."
"She knew that he was…"
"No, she made him promise not to, and he did it anyway without informing her. When she figured out what he had done she went looking for me. Got me out before I could attempt to escape on my own. Apparently, she made him drive us to the hospital. And then she let him leave."
He tried to mask the bitterness in that last sentence but Joe caught, he knew he did.
"Wow… and I bet that pissed you off too…"
"It did. Yes. But she also cut contact with him."
"And you believe that."
He didn't, but he still said: "Yes," to Joe.
"Well… Steve… I believe that your mother always did what she thought was right."
"What my mother did was self-serving and it was all to cover up the murder of an innocent woman. Wo Fat's mother was innocent…"
"Doris had an assignment," Joe said very loudly to cut off whatever else Steve was going to say. "That death was collateral."
"She covered it up and that is a crime."
God, Steve could hear the bitterness in his voice. But Joe didn't comment on it. Not right away anyway. "So, I tell you where she is and what, what are you gonna do then?" he asked. "Are you gonna go arrest your own mother? Really? When you didn't arrest Rowan for covering up her murder."
"How do you know about that?" Steve cried. "Joe. How do you know… and she didn't murder anyone, she was just there when it happened!"
"Don't worry, that piece of intel came from someone off grid and it was pure speculation, nothing was proven… until you went off like that. Did she really cover up a murder?"
"I mean… sort of…"
"Well I can tell you that they didn't cover it up well, they found the body… or well pieces of it," Joe said.
"Pieces?" Steve echoed.
"Yeah. Pieces got mailed back to his handlers…"
"Handlers?" Steve repeated. "Oh no, then it's not the right guy. Rowan's guy got sunk and he was a Colombian drug lord, he didn't have handlers."
Joe blinked his eyes he opened his mouth to argue when suddenly the truck was slammed into by a wrecking ball. The SUV popped dup into the air, rolled, landed on its tired only to roll once more time.
There was silence, the SUV was upside down, Steve was struggling to breathe, struggling to get his bearings when suddenly…
Captain America has been in a collision. Assessing damage.
Oh, Jesus Christ is was the app. Sandy was talking through the GPS.
"Steve… what is that…"
"Sandy… Sandy not now…"
Judging by the bleeding coming from your head, and the laceration in your friend's leg, immediate attention will be needed. Dispatching EMS to your location.
"Steve…."
"It's her app. Okay, it's her app."
"The app can talk?"
I've detected movement. Men in masks and guns. Heading your way. Six in total. Analyzing options.
Steve looked up and saw them through the splintered glass of his car window. They were coming towards his SUV guns drawn ready to finish them off and Steve was struggling to get his gun out but he was stuck in an awkward position and he couldn't reach it. He was certain they were done for but suddenly all the panic alarms started going off on his SUV.
This vehicle and all personnel inside are under protection of the Sanctuary network. Any incurred damages or deaths will be forwarded to Pierce the Destroyer and Fat the Enforcer to determine level of retribution.
The six men all took a precautionary step back and then abandoned the vehicle entirely. Steve was in too much of a panic to thank Sandy.
"You gotta stop them from taking Lange," Joe wheezed as Steve managed to get a hold of his gun.
"Sandy, Sandy… stop them… stop them from taking Lange." He ordered hoping to god it would work.
Sorry code name Captain America, my programming is only set to recognize already existing files. As… Lange… is not in my files… Lange… is not my concern.
Well fuck Sandy. Steve busted open his window, cutting his arm in the process but there was nothing Steve could to do stop them from shooting their guys, and taking Lang. He got one guy but everyone else got away.
Subjects have retreated. Situation neutralized. Immediate evacuation of vehicle is recommended.
God why couldn't that app shut up? "That's what I'm trying to do, Sandy," he snapped. "Joe… can you move?"
"The fucking thing talks now? No one told me it talks…"
"It's a new feature," Steve said trying to get Joe back on track. "Can you move Joe?"
"My leg is pinned."
The right side of your vehicle has been crushed. Evacuation will need to be done from the left side. Immediate evacuation of vehicle is recommended.
"Okay, Sandy, I'm trying, if you could please…"
I estimate that the vehicle will be on fire in…. Why did she stop like that, what the hell did that mean?
"Sandy?" Steve asked. "Sandy… how long do you estimate on the fire thing?"
He was fiddling with his pockets trying to get to his knife, his hands were shaking it was hard to see, everything was swimming and there was red washing over one of his eyes.
Priorities reassessed. Professional is en route.
"What? No. Sandy Stop her!"
Professional has ignored all alerts and recommendations. Car unhackable. Analyzing other options
Fuck she was in the GTO. Steve cut off his seat belt and struggled to pull himself out of the car. The glass cut his hands and his arms but he got himself up and around to the other side where he got something to pry the door open so he could get to Joe.
Nothing en route to barricade her from situation, not without causing casualties, or injuries to Professional. Asking permission to stop Professional at all costs.
What the fuck did that mean?
"Sandy… Sandy no! It's fine. I can take care of Professional," Steve cried but it didn't listen to him, much like Rowan herself.
Request to stop Professional by any means necessary has been declined. Unable to stop Professional from arriving at scene. ETA 5 minutes.
Great just great. Well… at least Wo Fat had the sense to decline the by any means necessary request. Maybe he'd call off Sandy helping him now that he knew she was doing that. Still Steve got Joe out of the truck, leant him up against it and then fished for his phone. Joe took stock of everything around him, all the bodies, the blood and the damage.
"This was a coordinated attack," he told him even though Steve already knew that. "And it looks like the Calvary's already here…"
The purple GTO skidded to a stop just meters away from the second upended SUV that had been the tail of their motorcade and Steve straightened watching as Rowan rushed to his side. There was something soothing about that, about watching her run to him. That hug he was so desperately craving, that he didn't realize he needed until he saw her, was so close to him.
"Oh my god. Baby, baby!" she cried as she slid to a stop in front him but she didn't hug him. She put a hand out to his sides, as if to brace him, as if she could keep him up. She took stock of all the injuries and all the blood. God she hated blood. He didn't want her vomiting right now.
"I'm okay," he whispered to her, "I'm fine. It's fine."
"It's not fine you're bleeding!" she snapped to him. She then half turned to Joe. "Hi Joe. Thanks for this. This has been a great morning. Did you know this was supposed to be Steve's day off?"
"Can you not?" Steve snapped to her. "Could you… please Rowan? Please? He's bleeding why don't you take my shirt huh…"
"Oh you're gonna take it off?" she asked with a devilish grin. She then looked around. "Not that I don't like it when you strip tease but is this really the time?"
Of course it wasn't the time, he looked around at all the carnage and then back to her in disbelief. Really? She needed to ask if this was the time?
"Rowan… we have bigger issues here…" he said as he stepped off the button up blue shirt and ripped it up into strips. Rowan gasped like he had hit her.
"Steven!" she cried. "That was my favourite shirt."
"You're not the one who wears it," he reminded her shoving it into her hands so she could help Joe with his injury. She tsked at him but knelt down to help Joe as he asked and Steve finally made the call he wanted to make.
"Steve, what's up?" Chin asked when he picked up.
"Chin, our motorcade has been compromised," he told him. A team of six guys with fully automatic weapons hijacked the transport vehicle and are now on the move with our patient."
Beside him Rowan finished helping Joe, held up a hand and then rushed to the bumper of the car to vomit. Great. Just fucking great.
"Can you… she doesn't do well with blood," he whispered to Joe who nodded and hobbled off to help hold her hair back and pet her back.
"Alright, it's a government vehicle, it should have GPS," Chin told him, and Steve heard the smart table whirling up to life. You guys okay?"
"Yeah we're alright… uh… Sandy's sending personnel to us apparently… maybe check in on that?" Steve offered.
"Sandy? Sanctuary's acting for you now? Did Rowan send her down over or something?"
"No. I don't know. When she's done throwing up I'll ask her."
"Oh… and Rowan's there?"
"Chin… the van?" Steve reminded him and Chin went silent for a second.
"Alright, I got them. They're heading up on Nimitz," he told him.
"Joe I gotta go," Steve told them. Joe straightened, Rowan straightened too. There was a wildness in her eyes he didn't like seeing.
"Steve, sit tight and wait for EMS. I'll get HPD on the sprinter," Chin called but Steve shook his head.
"There's no time," he said. "Rowan I'm taking the GTO."
"Like hell you are," Rowan cried. "You may have a concussion… or you may be bleeding out. Either way you're not driving my car."
"Rowan… I need to get this guy back, he's sick… he needs help. Give me your keys."
"No!" Rowan snapped. "You're in no state to drive, I'll drive."
"No. Rowan… no…" he said shaking his head. He wanted Rowan very far away from everything contagious.
"Okay, Steven this is what I'm good at. Trust me, Steven, I can drive. Trust me. Please, you're injured, let me help you," she pleaded. He knew that she wouldn't relent and the bad guys were getting farther and farther away from them.
"Okay fine," he growled. "But you better drive fast, so help me."
Rowan's smile was glitteringly beautiful and it made him smile in the midst of such stressful moment. He followed her to the car, letting her take the driver's seat while he took the passenger.
"Buckle up," she warned him and then before he could actually get it done the GTO was squealing forward racing away from the chaos that Steve had been embroiled in it.
Steve couldn't help it, he frantically struggled with the seatbelt because he had never gone this fast in her GTO before, had never gone this fast and not been at the wheel of the car. But one glance at Rowan, seeing that look on her face that he attributed to her focused driven side and he calmed down. This was her element, she wasn't panicked, or worried, she was fully and completely proficient at this and she knew it.
"Take Pacific to Iwilei and that should cut them off… oh and Steve… if you're letting Rowan drive… hold onto something… especially on the turns."
"Got it!" Rowan and Steve said at the same time. Steve clutched onto the grab handle a little tighter as Rowan put the gear up and pressed down on the gas so they GTO leapt forward once more.
"Ro… Rowan… maybe… maybe just slow down?" Steve whispered, his hand now gripping the passenger side door.
"Nope, we wasted too much time arguing about who's driving, we gotta catch up," she said not once looking away from the road.
Steve opened his mouth to argue with her but Rowan flipped gears and they drifted way too efficiently through the turn. She didn't lose a single second of speed.
Steve turned to her his eyes wide, a proud grin on his face. "Holy shit… you really are good."
"They didn't call me the Professional for nothing Steve," she said finally shooting him a smile.
"Wait a minute… they've stopped. North King and Iwilei."
"I got it!" Rowan said again and Steve frowned because up above them, on the street he figured she was going to turn down, was a truck.
"Ro… Ro… Ro… slow down," he said.
"Hold on!" she replied instead and Steve tried not to cringe and cry out but did as she did some clever maneuvering that got the car around the corner and away from the truck with what looked like minimal effort from his girlfriend.
She pulled the GTO up to where they could see the van parked by an abandoned warehouse like building.
"No, stop here," Steve said a good twenty feet from the van. Rowan opened her mouth to argue but Steve shook his head. "The guy is highly contagious and they had guns, stay here."
Rowan sat back but kept the engine idling as Steve got out, gun drawn and made his way up to the van. He checked the driver's seat first to make sure he didn't have anyone up at the front of the van and he didn't. He moved back towards the back, knowing what he was going to find but hoping beyond hope that he was wrong.
But he was right. Because there was no one in the back of that van. Lange was gone. Steve sighed that was not good.
"Steve?" Chin asked and Steve groaned remembering that Chin had been on the other line. That meant he had heard Steve's squeal of fear when Rowan nearly took them out with that tractor trailer truck.
"I'm here, it's empty," he answered.
"There's only one reason they'd take that patient… the virus."
"Chin, contact homeland security and CDC, I think we're looking at a major national security situation here," Steve said. Chin said he'd do just that and then…
"So what did he have?"
Steve heard that his gasp paired with a yelp of surprise and was very glad they were alone for that moment. He blamed the accident it had him jumping at everything. "Fuck. Rowan… I said stay back."
"I know, but it's clearly empty and I mean… just look at you, you're bleeding everywhere."
Her hands went for him again, turning over his left arm so she could look at the gash, her fingertips brushing against the laceration above his eye which had his left eye squinting a bit, and then went to his sides, under his shirt.
"That's not mine," he whispered to her, when he noticed the patch of red blood that had seeped through his shirt. "At least I don't think it's mine."
Rowan lifted up his shirt to reveal the beginnings of terrible bruising but no puncture wounds. Rowan made a noise in the back of her throat, this strangled kind of groan and despite knowing better Steve pulled her to his chest for that hug he had been craving.
"I'm fine baby… I'm fine."
"I know… but Steve it looks awful…" she said against his chest. "Like it looks really, really bad."
Steve pressed a kiss into her hair and thought about how it felt when that wrecking ball hit his car and sent them flying.
"Can… can I ask a question?" he asked softly. "You don't have to answer, I just… I'm curious."
Rowan lifted her head out of his chest. "Sure, what's up?"
"How did you… having just gone through something similar… how the hell did you survive rolling that car four times… I mean… is that one of your nightmares? Is that… thinking about it now, Rowan... having just gone through it… I'm very worried that you felt something similar to what I just felt."
Rowan was silent for a bit. "That was more than one question... and uh… I'm not even sure what you were asking," she whispered. He opened his mouth to tell her it didn't matter. "Well uh… to answer one of your questions… yes it is a nightmare I have… that I'm still in that car. As for the others… uhm… well… if you remember… when I crashed that car I wasn't trying to survive… the plan was to kill all of us. And uh… after I rolled the car, I uhm… I was still conscious for a bit… and I was upside down… and I was surrounded by dead bodies in weird angles and with lifeless, blame filled eyes all staring at me… and my leg was caught and I kept crying out for help… and then things kind of go black and from there on in I get flashes… but uhm… that incident is why I don't do well with bodies or blood, though it's always been an issue, it just got worse after that. It's why I don't like small spaces, which has since then gotten worse since the attack and the tunnels… but uh… yeah… you probably felt something similar to what I was feeling at the time, except I feel like with your training you're probably trained to take situations like that much better then me… and the way I handled it. I just had a panic attack."
Steve took all of that in and when Rowan's eyes, which had been carefully looking everywhere but at him for that whole speech, finally turned back up to him she winced. So that meant whatever look he had been making was not a positive one.
"Don't look at me like that," she whispered, looking away from him. She tried to push out of his grasp but he wouldn't let her go. He needed her to hold onto him, he needed to hold onto her. Because thinking of her in that situation scared him a lot more than what had just happened to him. And there was nothing he could do to change it, to protect her from it, because it was something that had already happened.
But he knew one thing. He knew that if he could he was going to make sure that nothing like that ever happened to her or him again.