“Lie and tell myself I can make it on my own;
Making it alone is lonely;
Twisting I’m turning oh I’m crashing and I’m burning;
So reach out your hand to me.”
<How do I describe love? It’s both a feeling as well as a state of being. Love is both abstract and concrete. Loving him was like watching the sun rise. Everything was cold and dark, but then, all of a sudden, it was bright, and warm, and beautiful. Love is the best of us, and his love was the best of me. I would do anything if I could be happy and with him again.>
“Come down
Rescue my heart
I’ll drown
Without you.”
----------------------------
Brock Rumlow was a damned prideful man. He had always prided himself on having never needed anyone or anything. He had joked about it with Jack on missions sometimes. For years they had worked together, growing closer. It had taken them the best part of a decade for them to realize that they spent more of their down time together than they did out chasing one-night-stands.
The first night spent together was filled with passion, and fire, and quiet confessions whispered over warm skin in the darkness.
Missions afterwards were filled with looks of longing, and worry for each other, and stolen kisses in heated moments.
It was only a few months after that first night that they were sharing nearly everything. Jack had piles of books and gear at Brock’s place. Most of Brock’s clothes and all of his guns were at Jack’s place. After one big argument and several rounds of really great makeup sex, they were boxing up everything they owned and moving into a bigger apartment across the city.
Days and weeks together turned into months and years. Brock had never been happier in his entire life. Jack didn’t even know he could be this happy. The day that should have been an anniversary- fifteen years together, and Brock’s world ended.
--------------------------------------
“Agent Rumlow, we need your full cooperation for this to be effective. You cannot expect us to grant you any leniency for your treason unless you give us the information you have on HYDRA.”
The Scarlet Witch was new to this, Brock could tell. It didn’t change the churning in his gut and the feeling of fire razing across his soul.
“Yeah? I got nothin’ ta say.”
“Nothing? Maybe then, your life is not worth us saving it.”
A soft click across the room alerted Wanda to Captain Rogers entering the room. She stepped to one side.
“Rumlow.”
“Rogers.”
“I know that you’re probably the most uncooperative bastard that’s ever been in this room, but it can only help you at this point to tell us what you know.”
Brock stayed silent.
“I have to say, none of the other guys gave us much. Either they didn’t know anything, or, more likely, you have Rollins training them to resist interrogation.”
It was the mention of Jack’s name that did it. The fire burning inside him made him feel like he was going to be sick. Brock’s eyes welled up and his fists clenched where they were zip-tied. It felt like a bowling ball was in the pit of his stomach, and a lump was in his throat. The ache burned down the veins in his arms like poison.
“Shut up, Rogers. You don’t get to say his name.” Brock’s voice was filled with so much pain that Steve looked shocked. He turned to Wanda, who was pale, and had tears running down her face.
Brock stared at her, thinking about every good memory he ever had about Jack, knowing she could see right into his heart.
“Stop! Stop, oh it hurts-” Wanda was sobbing openly, and she collapsed onto the floor of the interrogation room. Steve crowded in, concern written across his face. He glanced back at Brock, at the tears rolling down his face.
-----------------------------
“Come down and rescue my heart
I’m deep underground
I can’t dig my way out;
So come down.”
<I got lucky. Really fucking lucky- the person that I loved chose to love me back. You can’t put a price on that. You have to earn that. Not sure if I ever did deserve him, but he loved me anyway.>
-----------------------------
Jack and Brock’s mornings were filled with coffee and lazy kisses and whispered promises. Every day felt like waking up in a dream. The evenings were filled with sweat, and the soft glide of skin. Panting breaths and soft moans filled the apartment they shared.
The first time that Jack told Brock he loved him, he was still holding Brock tight against his body. His arms still around the sides of Brock’s face, face still flushed, and still glowing with the rush of his orgasm. Brock had smiled, but didn’t say it back.
The first time that Brock told Jack that he loved him it was in the middle of a mission. It was in front of everyone. The ones that seemed shocked didn’t dare to say anything. The ones that knew just gave the man some space.
Jack was down. His injuries weren’t extensive, but they were severe. It certainly wasn’t the first time he’d taken a bullet, but it was the first time he’d taken one to the thigh. The blood poured so quickly, hot and steady and too damn much.
Jack’s vision was hazy. He couldn’t remember anything but Brock’s begging voice, telling him to ‘Stay, please god just stay with me.’ A litany of ‘I love you I love you I love you,’ and ‘Don’t you fucking die on me,’ were all that followed Jack’s thread of consciousness.
it was as Jack lay in medical, hooked up to life support, monitors beeping, and the STRIKE agents coming and going, that Brock realized how much he needed Jack. He couldn’t picture a world without Jack in it. As hot tears slid down his face, the others quietly filed out, giving him some privacy with the man he loved so deeply. Brock was terrified.
-----------------------------------
“Rescue my heart
Oh, rescue my heart.”
Steve gathered Wanda and took her outside the room. “Wanda?” He asked gently.
“Pain. Steve, he is in so much pain. As soon as you mentioned Rollins. They must have been together because that man in there is heartbroken. He won’t give us anything because he doesn’t care anymore. Steve, I don’t think he feels like he has anything to live for.”
Steve looked pensive for a moment. He tried to reconsider every interaction he’d ever had with Brock and Jack. He tried to think to any time they had seemed like more. Dozens of little things sprang to mind. The way that Brock sought out Jack after missions. The way that Jack always had an extra cup of coffee for Brock. One was always doing reports for the other, while the other stowed the gear. Steve had always assumed they simply functioned well as Commander and Lieutenant Commander. The more he thought, the more it made sense that they were so much more than that.
“Stay out here for a little while. I’ll walk you out.”
Steve re- entered the room, and Rumlow pointedly avoided looking Steve in the eye.
“Ya’ know, it was fifteen years to the day when he died. To the fuckin’ day.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No. You don’t get to say that. Not when you took him away from me.”
“I had no choice Rumlow. HYDRA had to go down."
“And who do you fucking think put Fury onto HYDRA?” Brock roared out. “We fucking did! Yeah, okay. We’re the bad guys. But we owned up. It was just a paycheck for us any-fucking-how. We were out. We were done. We were supposed to be done. And then Pierce brought out his ‘Asset.’ Then all hell broke loose.”
Brock heaved a deep breath, angry at having said so much.
“Did you know about the Asset before that? Did you know who he was?” Steve’s hands were shaky.
“I’d never fucking seen him before. They kept him in cryo. We knew that an asset existed, but we never knew it was a fucking person. I told you- we were done. I’ve done a lot of bad shit in my life, but that’s too much even for me. I just wanted to live out the rest of my days somewhere quiet with my husband.”
“Husband?” Steve said incredulously, his eyebrows nearly touching his hairline.
“Yeah. Jack asked me to marry him a week before the Trisk went down. A week before we’d been together for fifteen fucking years. And I wanted that. I wanted him.That’s what you took from me.”
----------------------------
“I can’t breathe any faster
All the air I wanna capture
It’s heavy and it hurts my head;
If you found me, would you save me?
If you touched me, would it break me?
And will I come back from this?”
<I think the memory of being happy is worse than before I was ever happy. Imagine having a perfect happiness. Everything in your life has fallen into place- even though you never expected it to. Every day is immeasurable joy. You wake up next to the person you love, and all you can think about is how incredibly lucky you are. You do everything with that same perfect joy. You go to work, you go to the gym, go home, go to bed. All you can see in the foreseeable future is the same blissful, perfect happiness. Life feels perfect. Now imagine the punch to the gut when everything falls down around you, because the one thing, the one person who gave you that happiness- was stolen from you.>
-------------------------------
“Come down,
Rescue my heart,
I’ll drown
Without you.”
Brock Rumlow was released to a maximum- security prison in Baltimore. He refused to talk. After a while he refused to eat. It was becoming evident that he wanted nothing more than to lay down and die.
He had been removed to a low- security psychiatric hospital when it was discovered that he was saving plastic spoons and sharpening them. His wrists and legs were covered in slices and gashes, all in various stages of healing.
The psychologists were at a complete loss for how to deal with Brock. He was more loaded with issues than any patient they’d ever treated. Brock Rumlow exuded agony. He couldn’t handle going on without Jack. He wasn’t complete. He wasn’t worried about saving his soul, or burning in hell. He was already in hell.
They had scrounged up a priest when it was revealed that Brock was Catholic. Maybe they thought it was the last way to appeal to a broken man. The priest could ramble on all he wanted about the afterlife- Brock was tired. His reason for living, the light that had brightened the dark corners of Brock’s soul, had been put out. Brock had nothing left.
He went unnoticed for almost a full day when he escaped from the psychiatric facility.
--------------------------------
“Come down and rescue my heart,
I’ll drown without you,
I’m deep underground
I can’t dig my way out
So come down.”
When the Avengers received the alert that Crossbones had escaped, Steve stopped the assemble. Remembering the broken man he’d seen a few months before, Steve took only Wanda, and headed straight for Washington D.C.
Following his gut instinct, Steve’s first stop was the apartment that Jack and Brock had shared in the city.
-------------------------------------
“Rescue my heart,
Rescue my heart,
Rescue my heart.”
<You know what truly aches all that you are? Having so much inside you and not having the slightest clue how to pour it all out. All I feel is pain. I know that this isn’t what Jack would have wanted. He would want me to man the fuck up and move on. But I can’t. He was always so much stronger than me. How can I just stop needing the man I’ve loved for almost two decades? Going on without him makes me feel sick. When I do this, I don’t know if I’ll get to see him again. I’d like to think so. But even if I don’t, it will make me stop missing him, and I’ll take that. So if you’re watching me now, Jackie- I love you.
Brock>
---------------------------------------
The police were finishing up taking their reports, and the coroner’s office had come to take away Brock’s body. His death was ruled a suicide, although the autopsy would have to reveal the actual cause of death. The letter Brock had written was taken in as evidence, but Steve didn’t think he would ever be able to forget the way the words haunted him.
When it was time for the arrangements to be made, Steve made a personal trip out to Montana. Jack and Brock had kept a safehouse there. It hadn’t been used in years. Steve took his time, appreciating the stillness and the quiet around him. When he was finished, Jack’s and Brock’s ashes were together under six feet of rocky soil. He hoped that they were at least at peace now.
“Who will rescue my heart?
Who will rescue my heart?
Who will rescue my heart?
Come down
Rescue my heart
I'll drown
Without you
Come down and rescue my heart,
I’ll drown without you
I’m deep underground
I can’t dig my way out
So come down.”