Split Personality

Chapter Twenty Two

His voice echoed throughout the room filling the eerie silence. I fiddled with the hem of my shirt trying to find out what I truly wanted to say to him. "So is Steve really silent?" He cockced his head to the side, "He is, he went quiet right after I came back. He said goodbye and never said another word." I felt a knot in my stomach form. My mind was telling me to at least try to break through but nothing was coming out of my mouth to even try. The corner of his mouth twitched before forming a smirk, "I am guessing you at least cared for him like family. You hate to see him gone." My knuckles turned white as I dug my nails onto my shirt, "I hate you. I would always hate you even when you are dead. Yes Steve and I had our differences but if he ever died I will be very upset." My voice started to become shaky as I carried on what I was saying.

Before I continued with the conversation the door opened behind me. I saw the shadow of three people walk through the door, "Mr. Stark I recommended you go back to the lounge with the rest of your team. At least for a little bit as we do some testing on the Captain." T'Challa had his prince voice activated, a commending yet monotone voice. I stood up and took one last look at the Captain before walking out the door. Both James and Nat were sitting on the floor near the stairs, "Hey Tony." I walked past them both to go up the stairs, "Come on, let's go back to the others." I wasn't in the best mood after talking with the Captain, so their confused mummers behind me made sense.

*Time Skip*

James' POV

It has been about 5 hours since T'Challa and Shuri kicked us out of the cell room to see what was wrong with Steve. So everyone was sitting in the lounge trying to keep ourselves busy as time went on. Sam was doing something on his phone, I could hear some laughing from the video he was watching, Nat was messing around with her baton and pistol, Rhodey was playing with he gauntlet, Clint was throwing arrows at the target he put on the wall, and Tony was shaking his leg and running his hands through his hair. I myself was sharpening my knife, trying my best not to leave the room to see what was going on.

The door slammed open startling all of us. T'Challa ran in, he was dressed in his black panther uniform while Shuri followed behind him with her vibranium gauntlets on her hands, "Avengers, we have a problem." He sounded a little out of breath as he spoke. We all stood up at the same time, we also all had worried looks on our faces. "What happened?!" Tony yelled from behind me. "Steve, he escaped and now we don't know where he went. We have to find him before he does anything rash." Everyone quickly got their gear on before running to different parts of the castle to look for him.

Tony and I were running outside when we saw him running towards the mountain. Sharing a quick glance we quickly followed him through the twist and turns of the tunnels that resided in the mountain. We nearly lost him but we saw a shadow on the wall near us. We reached the clift edge where Steve was on the ground, shivering and muttering words under his breath. "Steve?" Tony slowly walked over to him and placed his hand on his back, he quickly moved away from his touch. "Steve what happened." I questioned as I moved behind Tony. He slowly rocked back and forth still mutterding words under his breath. I moved a bit closer to hear what he was saying. "Stop. Loud. Go away. Help me." He kept repeating the same line of words over and over again, his voice was shaky and he had blood dripping from the corner of his mouth.

His eyes were two different colours, his right eye was blue while his left was red, and the whites of his eyes were bloodshot. Everytime we placed our hands on him to steady him he would move away and scratch his arm. "Steve, is that really you?" He nodded his head very quickly. I looked over to Tony who looked to be on the verge of tears, "How about you tell the others where we are. You look like you need a little time to think." A tear streamed down his face before he got up and started to walk through the mountain. I moved my attention back to Steve, "Steve, you ok?" He started to cry, his tears were red, I am guessing they were dyed with blood. I couldn't stand seeing him like this, he was in so much pain trying to fight for his mind back.

I sat down next to him and grabbed his hand, he wanted to move it away but my grip was too strong. "Steve, look at me." He hesitated for a second before he looked up at me, "James..." He sounded awful, "I can't keep this up..." Red tears started to fall down his face. I inched closer to him, "Can't keep what up?" I tried my best not to cry, this was the first time he actually cried in front of someone and it had to be because of Hydra ruining his mind. I noticed everyone walking up to us from the cave, no one really moved any closer so they wouldn't scare him. "I can't keep losing this war in my mind. Nothing can fix what happened to me, I am too far gone." I moved closer to him and pulled him into a hug. Everyone else sat down on the ground, watching and making sure that he didn't take off running.

I pulled away to face him once again, "Steve we can fix you, you just have to work with us. T'Challa and Shuri helped me get through what they did to me. Please just let us help you." He whipped his head to the side, "No, you don't understand, you started to break through yours for years. For me, it is a lot harder to break this. They upgraded their tech so no matter what I do, I can't win this battle for more than two hours. I just can't win, I can never be free." By this time his face, wrist and hands were stained with blood from his tears. I glanced over to T'Challa, "Is he too far gone?" I mouthed. He looked down for a quick second before nodding, "Sadly..."

I wanted to scream, he was my best friend and I can't stand seeing him in pain. There was no way I could help him and there was nothing I could really do to make this any better. "James, maybe it is time I leave." Everyone's hearts stopped for a quick second as we all stood up, "WHAT?" Steve jumped a bit at everyone yelling at him, "Steve what do you mean?" He slowly stood up and whipped the tears off of his face, "I am saying, you guys can't stand me being like this and I don't think you guys will be happy to see me locked in a cell. I also don't think I can stand watching all of you look upset." He took a step back which brought him closer to the edge. "WAIT!" We all took a half step towards him, he walked a bit closer to us after he noticed how close he was getting to the edge.

Tony grabbed his arm and pulled him further ahead so he was closer to the wall and everyone else was blocking the edge, "So what you are saying is that you want us to cut you off so you don't have to go through this anymore?" Tony's voice was shaking, he sounded so scared to lose one of his friends. Shuri stepped forward, "Rogers, just give us more time, we will find a way to help you." There was a few seconds of silence before Steve started to grip his hair and screamed. "STOP!" I could tell he was trying his best to win his mind back. Tony rushed to his side and held him, "We need to get him back to the castle and help him!" I helped Tony bring Steve back to the castle while everyone else rushed ahead of us to get everything ready for when we get back. "Steve we can help you, please don't give up hope again...please" I started to cry as we reached the door to the castle.