For the Love of a Patriot || 𝗖𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗔𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗮 ✔️ [#wattys 2018]

39 | Nothing Without You

•••

Welcome to the beginning of the end.

You may want to ask how I know this is the end of the line. I'm not quite sure how, I just know.

There's something almost poetic about going out the way I did. Perhaps it was who was by my side when it happened...or perhaps it was that I had not gone out at all.

Perhaps this is just an empty abyss, a figment of my imagination, a symbol of solitude.

All my mistakes coming back to haunt me, there was a sick and twisted sense of justice to it.

I should know better than to not take this warning lightly. There's a pit in my stomach telling me to be wary of the future.

But I suppose you already know how this ends.

Are you getting the same kind of Deja Vu that I am?

Have we been here before?

Do you know what this is?

It is the beginning...

Of the end.

•••

A familiar sting shocked me out of my stasis, causing me yell a little bit, tensing. Dull pain enveloped me from all sides—my hip felt off and my ribs felt bruised. My movement was restricted and I tensed even harder with confusion, seeing that my left arm was attached to the bed rail by a pair of silver handcuffs. I almost tugged at it, but a hand on my shoulder made me stop and look over with wide eyes.

"Hey..." Steve was looking at me with an urgent sense of calm in his face. "Calm down. You're okay."

I looked him in his face with my creased brows and wide eyes. He had scratches all over him, his lip was busted, and he had a cut on his eyebrow. "What the hell is going on?" I had no intentions of sounding so aggressive, but I did not take being handcuffed well. We were in a room, almost like an infirmary. It had to have been dark outside, as the room had almost no light save the lamp and the open door to the hallway.

"We're at a SHIELD facility." He answered softly, looking me over solemnly.

SHIELD?

I blinked back confusion. "Why am I handcuffed to a bed?"

Steve's eyes shifted to the cuffs connecting me to the bed and he took a breath. "They told me it was this or a cell. I didn't want you in either."

I fluttered my lashes, trying to understand the nature of my predicament, closing my eyes and shaking my head.

"What was the last thing you remember?" He inquired and I looked at him.

I averted my eyes to think as memories rushed back. The particular one of me...

"Drowning..." I said softly, staring at a spot on the floor.

He was silent for a moment.

"Something happened to you after."

I looked back up at him again. "What happened?" I was suddenly worried, overwhelmed a bit with the feeling. "Where are they, what did I do?"

Steve was still staring at me with those bleak eyes.

"That thing inside of you..." he started. "The Light..." he closed his eyes, correcting himself so it didn't sound as demeaning. He opened his eyes and looked down. "It almost killed six people. Including Cassio, Solokov, and me."