Awake Sorrow
My senses returned in a stinging light.
“She’s waking, I’ll inform Mr. Stark.” An Irish lilt floated overhead.
My thoughts, sluggish, I tried to shade my closed eyes but my hands wouldn’t move. Mouth resisting my desire to speak, my heart began pounding, panic in my chest.
“Take it easy Shay, you’re okay.” A warm hand and the gravelly voice of Nat relaxed me.
A sudden scramble at the door as several people entered the room.
“Shay!”-
“She’s awake?”-
“Thank the Allfathers!”
“Why isn’t she moving?”-
“What’s wrong with her?”-
“Doc, you’ve got to reverse that paralysis. Now!”
Voices overlapped and I mentally pulled away from the noise.
“Give. Her. Space.” that was Nat again, I could picture the look on her face as she shouted them down. Muttering something that sounded like “idiots” under her breath. “Shay, the doctor is giving you a reversal through the I.V. you’ll get movement back soon, then you can help me slap some sense into these boys.”
My eyelids opened at my command and I winced against the light. Practiced twitching my fingers, wetting dry lips. My friend’s faces came into focus, worry written in every line.
“I nap for a bit and you all freak out, hey?” I tried a grin but it came out weak.
“Shay.” Steve began, “You’ve been out for 4 days.”
-
Time seemed to be moving differently.
Shay avoided the mass funerals and the press, but she held Wanda’s hand as Pietro was laid to rest.
Thor had left Earth to learn more about the infinity stones. Stark was focused on recovery and relief efforts in Sokovia, Vision was working with Steve and Sam to repair critical infrastructure. Nat- still trying to trace Hulk’s flight patterns. And Clint had gone home, having helped save the world yet again. Everyone needed a break.
Shay was getting restless in her apartment, but the team had unequivocally ordered her to rest. In a twist of fate, Barnes was now in charge of watching over her, keeping her from over-exerting again. She had been restricted to a wheelchair for the first week, her strength still not returned. The current theory was that she had depleted her body of energy. The tranquilizers had stopped her body expending the last of its pulses in convulsions. The medical team had barely gotten to her in time to charge her stilling heart, keeping it going just long enough to get her to the ICU. It was a close call, and the team had been shaken.
They had seen her after the battle, walking with purpose. Healing, talking, wrapping sobbing people in her arms. She had been fine, strong. It had seemed that out of all of them, she had been least affected. Then Bucky had come running off a lifeboat with her limp body in his arms and time had stood still.
She understood their need to keep her safe, it was a natural reaction to that sort of trauma. Still, it felt stifling. Holding her cat like a life-line, she confronted Steve.
“I know you all want to make sure I’m ok, but I need to rebuild my strength. And I can’t do it glued to this couch.”
Barnes acquiesced first, privately convincing Steve that she would be safer if she could get back in fighting shape.
-
“We can’t always be there to protect her Steve.”
“We could take shifts.”
“Forever? And keep her here, like a pet? Come on Steve, it would destroy her.”
“I know... I just can’t get that picture out of my head, Bucky. You carrying her... so grey-” Steve’s voice had cut off then.
Bucky, eyes wet with pain, had shaken his head as though to dislodge the image. “It should be her choice. If you love her…”
-
They had come to a silent agreement and Shay had been allowed to set her own terms.
Twice a week she would be driven to the physio clinic where it had all begun. Andrews, her business partner would walk her through the grueling therapy under the watchful eye of Nat or Steve. She spent hours in the pool each day, just walking in the water. Wanda joined her often, and as always Shay was under the watchful eye of Barnes.
“If only I’d had a pool last time. This is awesome!” She had been exuberant and Barnes hadn’t asked what she meant by ‘last time’. Wanda wasn’t so shy.
“Last time?”
“Broke my pelvis, therapy back then was hard to get where I lived. It didn’t heal properly.” A deep sigh escaped her and she explained: “Car accident. I was 15.”
Wanda seemed to pick up something under the words.
“Who?”
“My Dad… We were run off the road- bridge actually. Trapper cut me free, but the water was so cold. And he… It was too late.” The last words were feather-light, cutting the air. Wanda blinked away fresh tears. Nobody saw the fear flash across Bucky’s face.
-
It took a month for her to regain the strength in her body. Another month and she was sparring again, testing the limits of her newly discovered abilities. Barnes stayed watchful, rarely speaking. Seeming to draw further into himself as he watched her with the others, seeing her glow return in the company of her friends. Steve had become more protective than ever, spending more time in Shay’s company. Music winding around them, emblematic of their bond.
-
Time waits for no-one, and more changes were coming:
Tony had decided to leave the new Avengers in Steve and Nat’s capable hands, stepping into a less active roll. Clint was retiring. I had given up my work at the clinic, keeping a share in the business but the day-to-day operations were in Andrews’s hands. And the Avengers were being moved to a new facility.
“I’m not really an Avenger guys.” I’d tried to shrug off Tony’s words at the last meeting in the tower, but Steve hadn’t let it go.
“You fought beside us, saved countless innocent people, and nearly died healing them. You will always be an Avenger, even if you decide not stay.” His earnest look disarmed me.
“Alright then, when do we start?”
-
Later that same day I’d seen Barnes packing a bag.
“Going somewhere?” I asked, leaning on the doorframe. He looked at me for a second before his eyes dropped to the floor guiltily.
“Yeah.”
“You’re not coming with, are you?” I spoke carefully, not wanting to accuse.
“No. I’ve… There are some things I need to take care of.”
“And I was just getting used to having a room-mate, what if they put me with the chatterbox bird-boy?” I joked. His serious expression caught me off-guard. “Hydra’s gone, James.” I watched his hands clenching into fists.
“I wasn’t the only Winter Soldier. And the others… were worse.” Finally, he looked in my face, his eyes ablaze. “I want… need… to know- to finish it.”
I nodded in understanding. “You know where to find me, if you ever need anything. Stay in touch… Steve still needs his best friend.” I retrieved a box from my closet, and returned to hand it to him. A silent farewell.
-
There was a haunted look on his face as he left the building, blending into the street, playing with the burner phone in his pocket.
Shay watched him go, anxiety pooling in her stomach.