Thrown Into Secrets

Shooting someone in the face and leaving Klaus

So, this is a longish chapter, but before we get started, I need you to look up the song "Like Real People Do" by Hozier. You can loop it through the whole chapter, or just listen to it when you get close to the end, but you need to listen to it while reading this chapter. (Play the song when you get to the motorcycle bit.) As a warning, the chapter does contain some explicit or triggering content as Steve and Grant reminisce on past hardships and briefly take a look at the fucked up part of Grant's brain when he kills someone due to anger and his protectiveness over Klaus.

NOTES ^^^

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Steve woke up to a quiet room filled with a soft golden light, colors dancing on the walls from the spinning glass attached to light hanging from the ceiling. The four people who slept in his bed were now gone, but someone had left the small window was open and it was letting in an uncharacteristically warm breeze for the time of year. Sitting up, Steve scanned his surroundings with bleary eyes that he slowly rubbed the sleep out of. How long had he been in the bed? Steve felt well rested for the first time in a long while and he rubbed his thighs, feeling a ridiculous amount of happiness that the pressure didn't cause him pain like it normally would have and that he didn't feel scabs break under the force. It was a nice change to the constant throb of his legs, but his hands were shaking lightly and felt numb, so he had to get up and work some circulation into the cold fingers. Shifting to the side of the bed, Steve felt his muscles ache the same way that they always had on the occasional day where he spent hours upon hours in the same position, just drawing things until his legs fell asleep and his fingers went stiff. It was a welcome similarity to his life before the war and before Captain America, so he just took a big breath of the clean air flowing into the room from the window. Steve let his mind wander a bit as he sat on the end of the bed, breathing deeply.

I really need to take a shower. I feel like shit.

You look like shit too, by the way, the showers are down the hall.

Grant? Is that you?

Who else, the Easter Rabbit?

I see that I was correct. I guess that it's time to get up.

Please tell me you are going to take a shower. You smell and I don't want Klaus to think that we are unkempt.

I should probably take a run first. I feel like running.

I'm pretty sure that the time for a morning run is long past. If you insist on exercise though, the training area is next to the showers.

Nice to know that you can get me around this place.

No problem, I wouldn't want you to walk into the room of one of the LadyBirds. Beautiful but deadly.

Nice. Now, walk me to the training rooms.

Steve chatted with Grant as he changed into clean clothes, pulling on a skin tight long sleeved shirt with a collar that came halfway up his neck and a pair of baggy pants. When Steve asked about the shirt choice that Grant demanded, there was silence before his voice explained that it was to cover up the self harm scars on his chest and forearms that show a bit with normal shirts. He either wore those shirts or his uniform because it covered the faint white scars. Steve understood completely. He usually kept the cuts to his legs because he wasn't expected to take off his pants or anything, but injuries usually happened in the top half of his body and he didn't want people to see the weaknesses on his skin when he had to take off his shirt to get fixed up if his healing factor couldn't take care of it within a few hours. After that conversation, Steve grabbed the journal off the desk exactly where he put it before and engaged in some light banter with Grant inside of his head as he made his way down the hall. There were six doors on either side of the hall, only a few of them occupied by people. Grant explained that the door next to his was Astrid's room, and the door next to that was Natalia. Across from Natalia was Yvette, and next to Yvette was Klaus. The rest of the rooms were either storage space, or rooms for important guests. Grant's room was the closest one to the hall leading back into the military base, but on the other end of the hall was a set of double doors with squares of glass or plastic looking through them. Steve pushed through the doors and was hit with the familiar scent of leather and sweat as he looked around to see a gym similar to the one he trained in at Avengers Tower. It was filled with weights, rope courses, punching bags, training dummies, assorted mats, and hundreds of different items including a few platforms attached to the walls and an uneven mound that was supposed to be some type of rock wall. The only difference was that there was a shooting range type of set up on the far side of the room that consisted of targets filled with bullet holes and large wooden posts covered in knife scars while missing large chunks from the sides. Steve finally felt as if he was home, no matter what time or place he had come from, there was always something similar to keep him grounded. Still stiff, he sat down on one of the mats to stretch while reading more in the journal.