First Light | Steve Rogers (Book Two)

Chapter Thirteen: How The Mighty Have Fallen

Trigger Warning: Hospitals, injuries, probable inaccurate description of a coma

It was dark. I felt numb and disconnected, like I was floating in a vast ocean.

For a while, I was convinced that I was dead. It made sense. I waited, wondering if someone was going to come and collect me, if all those stories were true.

I never liked to think about my inevitable death, I avoided the topic as much as possible. Maybe it was because I knew I'd done too many things, caused too many deaths. Maybe it was because I truly had no idea what to expect.

Throughout my life, I had held onto one belief: that there would be silence. Each time I watched a person die, a silence would settle over everything. It wasn't a scary silence, though. It was soothing and welcoming. It was the calm after a storm.

I wasn't quite sure how long it had been, but I gradually started to realise that I couldn't be dead. There was a distant beeping sound, the volume changing gradually like the tide ebbing and flowing across the shore. Sometimes, I would hear people talking to me. The voice I had grown so accustomed to hearing was the voice of a man. I knew his voice well, but I just couldn't figure out how.

As I lay in the water, I felt a rope tie around my waist. Someone was slowly pulling me along, each pull bringing me closer and closer to the voice.

"Look, I don't know if you can hear me. But if you can, I need you to give me a sign"

The voice was so loud. I could finally hear the words. I could finally understand what they were saying.

"Please, Rory. Just wake up. Come back to me"

I slowly reached a hand towards the light, ignoring the invisible force trying to force it back down.

"Come on, baby, wake up"

——————

I forced my eyes to open, squinting at the bright light that hung above me. It took a while of me struggling to move before I gave up. From the tilted position of my head, I could see a familiar figure sat in the chair next to my bed, his head bowed as he flipped the page of a book.

My mouth opened as I tried to speak, but my tongue felt like sandpaper. A quiet wheeze fell from my lips and I watched as his head snapped round to look at me, the book tumbling from his hands as he rushed over and knelt next to me.

"Steve?" I murmured hoarsely, barely audible over the beeping of the heart monitor.

He nodded hurriedly and reached for one of my hands, bringing it to his lips. Tears filled his eyes  and he began to grin, it was as if he hadn't smiled in a long time, as if he had forgotten it was possible. "Yeah," he sighed in relief, "It's me, it's Steve"

A wave of exhaustion hit me and I felt my eyes slowly begin to droop. I drew in a deep breath, wincing slightly when my body ached at the movement. "There's a bit of green in your eyes. It's beautiful..." my voice trailed off and the world grew dark once again.

I was in and out of consciousness for another couple of days, gradually managing to move myself. It took even longer than that to get out of my bed and start walking. My memory was still a little foggy when it came to recalling what had happened, but they said it would take time to come back. I was lucky to have survived such a big fall, only getting away with a few fractured vertebrae and a concussion. Although, I wasn't entirely sure how I fell.

Steve stayed with me the whole time, helping me through my recovery. He supported me through my physical therapy sessions, read to me when I was too tired to do anything, and cheered me up when I was at my low points. I knew it wasn't easy for him. He'd lost his friends, his family. Bucky was taken to Wakanda, where they planned to keep him frozen until they could get rid of the brainwashing.

Apparently, Fury had pulled a few strings, sending me to a secret SHIELD base. I knew a few of the agents already, but none of them had said anything about their superior.

"Why can't I remember getting hurt?" I asked the two young agents as they came in to check on me and bring me my medication.

The doctor sighed and handed me a few pills to swallow. "You hit your head when you fell. The stress caused some glands in your brain to increase size, impairing your memory and generally causing difficulties," there was a pause as I tried to understand her, "Your brain has swollen and now you can't remember things"

"Oh... is that normal?"

"Oh, yes. It's perfectly normal. We simply have to continue your treatment and see if anything can jog your memory"

She gave me a quick smile before heading off to the lab, leaving me alone with her friend. He chuckled softly and took a seat in the chair next to my bed, "Sorry about her, she can be a little intense sometimes"

I shook my head and leant back against the pillow, "She's okay. I'm just a field agent, so all of that science stuff is kinda confusing. Besides, I'm better with computers"

"You should meet my friend, Daisy. She's great with tech"

We sat in silence for a while and I cleared my throat, "Whenever you're around and people talk about my memory loss, you seem to understand. Not because your friend's a doctor, though"

He opened and closed his mouth a few times before finally answering, "Just over a year ago, our... a HYDRA double-agent locked Jemma and myself in one of the quinjet container modules a-and dropped us into the ocean to die. I let her have the last oxygen mask. It was, uh... hypoxia. It took me a while and I-I don't think I've ever really recovered. The memory loss was part of it, but it wasn't too bad"

"I'm so sorry... Can I tell you something?" he nodded, "I think Steve's keeping something from me. I think something happened when I got hurt. Whenever I mention it, he goes all quiet. It's like he wants to tell me, but he doesn't want me to get hurt"

"Have you talked to him about it? I'm sure he'll tell you when he's ready"