Years Beyond - Old Soul Sequel

1

I don't sleep much these days. It's now something alien to me, something that I'm not comfortable with. I don't dream like I used to dream anymore. I finally know what it's like to have a nightmare.

I don't like nightmares. When Banner drugs me up and forces me to sleep in order to "generate my healing abilities," I only have nightmares. It's never a dream.

I don't dream while he's gone.

Captured and confined, I still don't know where Steve is. It's been a week and it's a wonder I haven't gone to Hydra to take him back myself.

S.H.I.E.L.D has discussed attack plans, but you can't lead an attack without a leader. What's a crew without a Captain?

What am I without my Captain?

I've never tried harder to travel in my sickness than I have in that past week. I need to see him. I need to know if he's alive.

But he can't be dead. I'd know if he were dead.

No, I don't have any death superpowers that developed. I just feel like I'd know if he was dead, like some emotional tether cut off inside my heart.

It's a rarity that I trust people nowadays. Ever since Andrew vanished from my doorway that one afternoon, I don't know what to believe. Steve told me from the beginning not to trust S.H.I.E.L.D, but it was Hydra making me gain trust issues.

Hydra's technology and experiments were turning us on one another. Daphne was proof of this.

I'm glad that bitch is dead.

But even if she was dead, it didn't solve any problems. Sure, it helped, but it didn't win us the war that was waging.

Sometimes as I laid in my cot, I thought about when I first moved here. I was a technology nerd ready to make a mark on this city.

It almost makes me laugh thinking about how I never thought that I'd end up in the middle of a war.

It also made me think about Landon. I'd forgotten about him until two days ago, when they let me go to Stark towers to collect some clothes and things. Jarvis read me my emails, since Steve had my phone when he....disappeared. Landon had left me eleven of them.

He was my best friend and had been my whole life. In the midst of everything, I wanted him so badly. I just wanted something familiar and comfortable to dull out how screwed up everything has become.

I never should've moved to New York. The Big Apple was once red, but it has turned rotten.

I was in my room on one afternoon, exactly a week from the day Steve and Natasha went missing. I sat in my cot, my fever higher than usual. I felt miserable, and being in that medical room that I had officially moved into didn't help.

I've moved into three different homes in the past month.

A knock sounds on my door and I restraint from rolling my eyes. It was Bruce. It had to be. That's what the pattern was: him checking my stats in the morning, nurses waiting on me, Bruce in the afternoons and then nurses again with my food and medication. It's become a bit tedious. I couldn't help but memorize the routine. It kept me busy.

Sure enough, Bruce walked in the door. He casually strolled in, but when he looked up and saw what state I was in, he was much more dutiful.

"You're getting worse," he said, grabbing a thermometer.

I rolled my eyes. "That's old news."

He stuck in in my mouth and I was forced to bite off any other sarcastic remarks.