Dancing with Embers - Book Two (Winter Soldier)

12. Rest Easy, Now

Chapter twelve:

*If there were no tribulation, there would be no rest. If there was no winter there would be no summer.*

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I awoke quite a few hours later in a hospital bed. My eyes felt glued shut but after working against my common sense, I was able to open them.
Bright light flooded my vision and I shut my eyes quickly. After the ringing in my ears quieted I re-opened my eyes, this time with better results.

The hospital bed I was in was in the Triskelion, I assumed. The small room I was in was identical to the emergency rooms I had seen inside the Triskelion and, as I looked outside the small windows by the door, I could see uniformed people walking by. There was no nurse or doctor in the room with me however, and I wasn't hooked up to an I.V, so I didn't think twice about pushing the covers off and swinging my legs over the side of my bed.
As soon as I did so, my body protested. I gritted my teeth in both pain and annoyance as I felt the soreness that racked my whole body. The feeling wasn't foreign to me, I had been in plenty missions that left me unable to move for a few days, but I always seemed to forget about it until I tried to move.

Slower this time, I stood up. While I had been sleeping someone had obviously changed my clothes. My uniform was nowhere in sight and I was instead dressed in a hospital gown with my hair falling loosely down my back, feeling slightly damp as if it had been washed.
I slowly crossed the room to stand in front of the tiny mirror hanging on the wall. The cut on my face that Bucky had made was no longer bleeding, I hadn't expected it to be. There was no blood on my face and the huge cut was starting to close up. There were a few bruises on my face along with a few other smaller scratches but nothing that made me unwilling to go out in public.

I decided I wanted to go see Steve, and promptly figured that Sam would probably be with him. I had no idea where Natasha would be and as far as I was concerned, she would be perfectly fine if she wasn't taking a day off like the rest of us.
I opened the door to my room and quietly slipped out. Despite my attire, nobody stopped me or came hurrying after me to tell me to return to my bed. I walked down the hall, peering nonchalantly into the other rooms I passed as I looked for my fellow agents. They were nowhere to be seen, however I didn't let that discourage me. We were on the hospital floor of the Triskelion, they would most certainly be here somewhere.
And soon enough, I heard something that made me certain Sam was nearby. A quiet song was drifting out from a room on my left. I recognized it as 'Trouble Man' by Marvin Gaye. I smiled and made my way down the hallway towards the room. That was definitely Sam, most likely sitting by Steve's bed until he woke up, if he hadn't already.

My assumption proved to be correct when I looked through the thinly shaded windows. I knocked quietly on the door before pushing it open and entering. Sam looked up from a magazine he was reading and smiled when he saw me.
"Kindle." He whispered so he didn't wake Steve. I smiled back at him and took a seat on the opposite side of the Captain.
"How long has he been asleep?" I asked, just as quietly.
"A long time. He should be waking up soon."
As if on cue, I saw Steve's eyelids start to flutter. He opened his eyes slowly and turned his head to look at me sitting next to him. I gave him a smile which he tried to return, but only half-succeeded.
"On your left." Sam said. This made Steve turn and see his friend sitting next to him as well. I couldn't see his face, but I could tell that he was smiling from how his cheeks moved. He rolled his head back to rest against his pillow, still smiling.

•••

A few hours later the three of us had managed to change into normal clothes, despite feeling and probably looking like we needed many more hours of rest.
I had returned to the Triskelion to change out of my hospital gown and into a pair of white skinny jeans and a black shirt. My handgun wasn't on me for the first time in a long while but I surprisingly didn't feel lost without it.