Captain America: Sentinel Of Liberty #1 (2022)

Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty #1 (2022)

written by Jackson Lanzing & Collin Kelly art by Carmen Carnero & Nolan Woodard

#Chris Evans ignoring every question for 8 minutes straight 

Dean Winchester in SUPERNATURAL 1.04

Omg it's happening! I can't wait to see her reaction. Maybe she will hit Bucky again 😂

The Dignity of His Choice (7)

Emblem, Part Three (see previous or series)

Summary: Lots of misunderstandings lead to a bizarre move. (Warnings for blood/blades, fear, and angst. Minors DNI.)

You floated the idea of looking for a new apartment somewhere off AvIn’s campus to your family a while ago, but now every time Ro finds a place they think you’ll like, you stall. Eventually, you tell your sibling that it’s too cold, and it’s the holidays, and you’ll wait until spring to move out. Even though you hesitate to leave, the last few weeks have proved your super-secret, deep hopes are wrong.

Steve isn’t alive. No one is playing a cruel joke on you. If Steve were alive, Tony wouldn’t have bothered to give you protection. If Steve were alive, someone would be stopping you from tarnishing his memory. Someone would have gotten upset at even the implication that you’d look at another man. No one would be letting you move on, but that’s all anyone does.

They give you space. They give you the means to leave. They give you encouraging words. They let Steve die in earnest. They don’t hold onto tragic desperation like you do—like you did.

You finished his cologne bottle while visiting your parents and felt too weird about buying another. You’re on the last drops of his aftershave now, and to conserve it, you gently rub it on your pulse points at night. You aren’t sure how you’ll sleep without either of them. By the time you do move, the cabinet will be bare of anything that reminds you of Steve Rogers’ smell, faintly, occasionally, or just in passing.

It’s been three months, and you are about to enter a calendar year where Steve will never have been alive for any part of it. That’s such a strange hurt. You wonder how many more makeshift milestones you’ll be haunted with until it all feels normal.

You stopped receiving Pepper’s food deliveries before leaving on vacation, but you did not return to regularly feeding yourself. Tonight, you have waited until a reasonable hour for everyone to be asleep to go rummage in the resident’s dinette area. There is cake left from…something. The lettering on the round has been carved up and is now indecipherable.

“Happy merry whatever,” you mutter to yourself while bringing a plate down from the cabinet.

 Just as you slide a clean knife from the block, your stomach growls, and clear as day you can hear him: I think it’s trying to tell you something.

He’s not here, but he is everywhere. Steve’s birthday in particular was its own milestone for you. Year one was cake and your first casual conversation (after your stomach refused to let you leave without an announcement of despair). Year two was his proposal, a different kind of delicious memory now. 

Absently, your thumb twiddles the ring on your finger. Will you ever take it off? It’s hardly a question because every fiber of your being says ‘no,’ but not just ‘no.’ Your mind says ‘fuck no.’ Your body says ‘you go fuck yourself, no.’ Your soul says ‘I will fuck up anyone who tries it, no.’ That makes you smile.

Steve would hate the language, but somehow you still think he’d approve of the sentiment, maybe even give your side a squeeze and your temple a kiss. He’s gentle with you even as his presence fades from your day-to-day life.

The band feels warm, but the raised stone is cool. You bring your hand up from your side, fingers lean, probably from under-eating and dehydration. You’ll need to take care of yourself better, but it’s been so hard. Your hand has aged a decade in weeks, or so it feels, and as you twist it back and forth to look, you’d swear the garnet sparkles a little less.

The door to the common area explodes open. You jump, slamming your hands over your ears. Caught on the overhang of countertop, the knife is knocked from your grasp and falls straight onto your foot. The barest of cuts grows red with a few drops of blood, and Tony Stark stands before you in the Iron Man suit, heavy metal boots clattering to the ground.

He flew here.

“What’s happened?” You yell it because your ears are still covered. “Do you need me down in the lab?”

Tony strides over and grabs your wrist without saying anything. It’s maybe one heartbeat before his helmet pops open and he gives you a casual, “nothing.”

You rip your hand away from his. You think he was examining the watch he gave you, and you’re furious if all that was his way of checking you were still wearing it.  You promised you would so you are, that’s all he should need. Now you’re suddenly concerned there’s a tracking device inside and kinda want to throw it in his face.

Tony opens the fridge and takes a green smoothie out. “False alarm,” he says with a shrug. He’s not convincing.

“Bit dramatic for a late-night snack,” you grumble, picking the knife off the floor and starting to wash it in the sink.

He rushes forward. “Allow me.”

Tony cuts you a too-small piece of cake, but you dismiss yourself to eat it in your room. You hoped to not see anyone at this late hour. You are certainly not prepared to talk to Stark. You aren’t prepared to admit you haven’t made progress with grieving.

Still hungry, you fall into a restless, dreamless sleep.

The hand clamping over your mouth is a shock to say the least. The harsh voice shushing you accompanies the cold, metal gesture.

Bucky is in your room, your bedroom, and he’s quietly demanding you get up and follow him. As terrified as you are—since you have not said more than two words to him since Steve’s funeral—you shuffle groggily behind him in the dark. He doesn’t say what’s going on. He just turns at the apartment’s front door.

“You’ll need pants.”

Right. You’re just in Steve’s shirt and underwear.

“Warm pants,” he clarifies when you make for the closet. Alpine doesn’t even lift her head off of Steve’s pillow, and since Natasha never came back to collect the cat, you wonder for a moment if Bucky is even really here. They’ve been gone so long; maybe you’re having a nightmare? You pull on pants anyway. It’s not as if pants will hurt you

When you’re back to the threshold, he hands you your coat, and repeats, “not a sound. Got it?”

So you nod, too tired to argue or fight or quip or do anything. He seems real.

Bucky traverses the most roundabout way to the jet bay you’ve ever taken. The route is ten times as long as the one elevator and two hallways it normally would. If you weren’t becoming deeply concerned as to how much danger you (or he) might be in, you would complain about how exhausted you are. He said to be quiet though, and if ever Steve drilled something into you, it’s ‘listen to Buck.’

Even though you technically didn’t listen when Bucky said he was sorry or even really listen when he said Steve was dead. Well, you can do as Bucky says, but you don’t have to believe him. That works. That fulfills your promise to Steve. You are still angry, but you can continue to hate Bucky after whatever crisis this is ends.

For fifteen minutes he has you stand in the corner of a stairwell waiting for a guard’s shift change, and then you are bolting to an open cargo door. Bucky holds his ear for another moment before pressing the button to seal the hatch. You realize only when he’s in the cockpit with a woman’s voice saying just two words of ‘you’re clear’ that he was timing the noise and takeoff.

That was Natasha’s voice. This is unauthorized, all of it, and now you’re fucking scared. You don’t know where to start your questions. Before you can, however, Bucky swivels the pilot chair around and tells you to sit down. It will be a while.

The most you can muster is asking if you need to prepare equipment or lab gear for when you land. You think it’s possible you are needed for some top-secret mission, and Dr. Banner wasn’t available. If for some reason you were requested instead of the appropriate scientist, simply for your relationship with the team, that would warrant a stealthy exit, forgoing permission, and asking forgiveness later. Your thoughts default to work, and work alone, so easily these days because work is all you have, all the structure you have left in life.

Bucky says no. There’s no need for you to do anything. He tosses you a second coat, a huge downy thing, so you tuck it beneath your head as a pillow and fall asleep.

He did not give you the coat for resting. It’s freezing in the jet when you wake up as the vessel decelerates. It’s still pitch black outside.

You check your “Sketch and Keeper” watch but realize that you never looked to see what time it was when you were woken the first time. That’s plain unhelpful. You fight the urge to whine again.

The watch says 3:10am.

You should have eaten more cake. There better be a fucking bed wherever he’s taking you. There are all sorts of stories of hidden S.H.I.E.L.D bunkers or converted Hydra facilities kept out of official records. Whatever reason Bucky would have for relocating you (and himself) can wait for an explanation, even though you are less tired and more curious than before.

When the jet lands, it’s still too dark to see the terrain. Bucky has his finger on the door release again before he looks down at your slip-on shoes and curses.

“What the hell,” he mutters, rummaging through several lockers before dropping a pair of boots onto the grating in front of you. He tosses socks over, too. Bucky, adjusting his own thick but less bulky jacket, makes it very clear that your silence should continue once he opens the door.

Forest. Sad forest, not very dense. And snow. Thick, hard snow. It’s difficult to walk on because your feet puncture a crust which you must then vertically maneuver out of before stepping forward again. You’re not sure what the point of not speaking is; the crunching beneath your feet is so loud.

It’s slow going, but after clearing the landing site, Bucky takes pity and offers you his arm to balance with. The slope of the earth increases dramatically within the skinny trees. You blink a lot, searching for a facility or something to show you the remaining distance you have to travel. You blink more because the cold air is so dry and stings your eyes. Everything is uncomfortable and you feel less than useless. 

Why the hell would Bucky bother with you right now? You can’t be of any help out here? You have no supplies. You didn’t even have proper clothing. He’s patient but not pleased, and even with your lingering anger, you don’t want to make life harder for Bucky.

You are trying, you really are, but it is difficult to coordinate your movements without talking to him. The second coat is long and makes bending your knees and spreading your legs difficult. The socks are too loose to help much. You stare down at your feet in floppy, large boots, and—

How did you miss it?

Tan boots with dark brown laces.

You freeze. Your hand drops from Bucky’s arm. You can’t stop yourself.

“Did you give me his boots?” It’s not loud, but it is harsh and biting in the silence.

Bucky moves to cover your mouth, and the force of his gloved hand suctioning to your lips lifts your eye line. That’s when you see it: a tiny (and you mean tiny) cabin, barely visible in the moonlight. 

Bucky’s face is too dark for you to see any specific expression, but he suddenly uncovers your mouth and pulls your head down. He moves so fast. He jumps to the other side of you. You hiss at the twinge in your neck.

What the hell is going on? Why are you here? Too many questions flood you to form real words. You don’t know what you’re supposed to be doing.

It’s like your brain plays tricks on you because you actually hear the question, too.

“Why are you here? Why did you bring her?”

A man’s voice.

It’s not in your head.

It’s not a memory. It’s…it can’t be. That’s not possible.

And then, like he’s simply ripping thoughts straight out of your brain, Steve says, “is it over?”

(Next Part coming Tuesday!)

\o/ Thanks to everyone who hung in there. It's about to get interesting... And let me know if you'd like to be added to or removed from the taglist.

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