Arrival.
There is a sound and a fury to the twenty first century that makes the clamor of post-War, pre-Depression Brooklyn seem tinny and small. Growing up in the city of churches, the noise was constant, everything reverberating off of brick and cobblestone, but I had no idea what true cacophony was until I became Captain America; first by way of the fire in my veins and the lights bombarding me as my body warped and changed itself into the machine I needed it to be to enact the duties my patriotism demanded; then in the explosive percussion of World War II; and finally, the modern age I came to live in, alive at all hours, saturated with noise and technology and so many voices striving so powerfully to be heard. It's all taken some getting used to.
There is a new quality of sound now, though, one I am not familiar with. One that rattles as hollowly around inside my chest as it does the corrugated metal interior of the armored car I'm riding in. It's distressed and dissonant, a low rumble that threatens to break into a fever pitch at the slightest provocation, at the correct signal, and I know before the doors open that I will be that catalyst, I'll be what ignites the crowd. It's not a good feeling, this knowledge.
It isn't shame that makes me regret having to walk up the steps of the Federal Courthouse in a few moments, it isn't some sense of wounded pride that makes the metal cuffed around my wrists feel heavy- though those things are there, undeniably. I'm not a saint, or liar enough to say they aren't- so much as a grim, sinking feeling that this fight isn't over. My part in it, maybe, but the people have had so much stripped from them, from heroes they trusted and relied on to rights they thought, still think, are inalienable, ones they may not yet realize to be corrupted. For some, seeing me marched to my arraignment by plain clothes and duty blues police officers, not a super-powered being among them, will be gratifying. Reassuring. For others it will doubtless create the kind of despair I first felt an inkling of when I realized Tony wasn't going to back down. I would have fought forever over this, but I stood down, and I'm starting to think I've left the heaviest lifting to people who don't yet understand how lengthy and far-reaching this campaign will be.
Or maybe I just can't accept a world without a war to fight, in which case it's all vanity. I'm not sure. That lack of certainty alone was reason enough for me to concede, I know that- and I wish it made this easier.
The doors open and the rumble becomes a low, dull roar. This is where S.H.I.E.L.D. will hand me over. I step down, the grips of my boots hitting familiar pavement, and it isn't more than the space of a moment before individual slogans become discernible, ones with words like traitor and fake, questions like how could you and condemnations that spell it out, very clearly- this is what I deserve. There are other words, hero and captain, a forcedly punchy chant of 'Free Cap', like a desperate, steady drum beat, and though the other words are louder, I can't ignore the voices of support. I can't ignore any of their voices, because it was doing that which brought me here. Then I get hit in the face with a tomato. If there's one thing you can say for my fellow New Yorkers, we do like to uphold traditions.
I don't have the same uncanny skills as so many of my fellow heroes. Peter's ability in particular, his sixth sense for danger, is one I have admired many times. You can only go so far in the field of combat, though, before you develop one of your own, and I look past the crowd to the buildings beyond. Some have the broader loft-style windows set into brick that are reminiscent of the apartments in Red Hook- home- only twenty minutes on the J train if I started for the subway station right now- while others sport tall, thin windows and old masonry so specific to the financial district, and it's in one of these that I see the scope of the sniper rifle.
It's easiest to assume I'm the target, though given the confluence of influences here that isn't a given. Regardless, everyone around me is in immediate danger, especially the officer leading me up the steps. If the bullet goes through me, if the shooter misses, it is this man who will be taking the shot.
No. No more. No more innocents will be wounded in this crossfire.
It hasn't been two seconds since the muzzle of the rifle registered in my vision and despite my exhaustion, the peculiar lethargy brought on by an unfamiliar sense of defeat, I throw myself forward, shoving the Federal Marshal up the steps and away from me, away from the line of fire. I can't get away from the crowd, but I can angle myself so whatever fire I take, it won't encompass anyone but me.
"Look out!" I yell, loud and strong enough to startle my escorts and, I hope to God, the crush of onlookers pressing ever closer against the barricades. I hear the crack of the rifle's discharge and a shredding in my back, impact and pain like only a bullet can really cause. I've been shot plenty of times- it is, understandably, part of the job description- but something gets hit inside and I feel it, my lung, as something pops and most of my air is suddenly gone. There's a strange, cold pain across the front of my chest and I know the bullet went through, must be lodged in the stone steps. It's staggering. It feels as though my heart's been ripped out.
I could swear to God I think I hear Sharon's voice as I fall.
There's light in my eyes, warm and bright, and the sharp edges of cut stone under me aren't the same width, the same number as the ones I was walking up just moments before. I try to breathe and it's too humid, though there's a secondary wetness, thick and coppery, in my throat. It should be more bewildering, the sudden shift in climate, in the quality of the air; the fact that all the sound seems to have gone out of the world, the screaming and hysteria, gone, the sound and the fury, gone.
Faulkner took the title of that book from a Shakespearean soliloquy. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time, and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. I can't remember which I read first, Faulkner or Shakespeare, just that they both came after Twain, and after... everything, I have to admit, it seems a small thing to be concerned about in the face of dying.
There is a new quality of sound now, though, one I am not familiar with. One that rattles as hollowly around inside my chest as it does the corrugated metal interior of the armored car I'm riding in. It's distressed and dissonant, a low rumble that threatens to break into a fever pitch at the slightest provocation, at the correct signal, and I know before the doors open that I will be that catalyst, I'll be what ignites the crowd. It's not a good feeling, this knowledge.
It isn't shame that makes me regret having to walk up the steps of the Federal Courthouse in a few moments, it isn't some sense of wounded pride that makes the metal cuffed around my wrists feel heavy- though those things are there, undeniably. I'm not a saint, or liar enough to say they aren't- so much as a grim, sinking feeling that this fight isn't over. My part in it, maybe, but the people have had so much stripped from them, from heroes they trusted and relied on to rights they thought, still think, are inalienable, ones they may not yet realize to be corrupted. For some, seeing me marched to my arraignment by plain clothes and duty blues police officers, not a super-powered being among them, will be gratifying. Reassuring. For others it will doubtless create the kind of despair I first felt an inkling of when I realized Tony wasn't going to back down. I would have fought forever over this, but I stood down, and I'm starting to think I've left the heaviest lifting to people who don't yet understand how lengthy and far-reaching this campaign will be.
Or maybe I just can't accept a world without a war to fight, in which case it's all vanity. I'm not sure. That lack of certainty alone was reason enough for me to concede, I know that- and I wish it made this easier.
The doors open and the rumble becomes a low, dull roar. This is where S.H.I.E.L.D. will hand me over. I step down, the grips of my boots hitting familiar pavement, and it isn't more than the space of a moment before individual slogans become discernible, ones with words like traitor and fake, questions like how could you and condemnations that spell it out, very clearly- this is what I deserve. There are other words, hero and captain, a forcedly punchy chant of 'Free Cap', like a desperate, steady drum beat, and though the other words are louder, I can't ignore the voices of support. I can't ignore any of their voices, because it was doing that which brought me here. Then I get hit in the face with a tomato. If there's one thing you can say for my fellow New Yorkers, we do like to uphold traditions.
I don't have the same uncanny skills as so many of my fellow heroes. Peter's ability in particular, his sixth sense for danger, is one I have admired many times. You can only go so far in the field of combat, though, before you develop one of your own, and I look past the crowd to the buildings beyond. Some have the broader loft-style windows set into brick that are reminiscent of the apartments in Red Hook- home- only twenty minutes on the J train if I started for the subway station right now- while others sport tall, thin windows and old masonry so specific to the financial district, and it's in one of these that I see the scope of the sniper rifle.
It's easiest to assume I'm the target, though given the confluence of influences here that isn't a given. Regardless, everyone around me is in immediate danger, especially the officer leading me up the steps. If the bullet goes through me, if the shooter misses, it is this man who will be taking the shot.
No. No more. No more innocents will be wounded in this crossfire.
It hasn't been two seconds since the muzzle of the rifle registered in my vision and despite my exhaustion, the peculiar lethargy brought on by an unfamiliar sense of defeat, I throw myself forward, shoving the Federal Marshal up the steps and away from me, away from the line of fire. I can't get away from the crowd, but I can angle myself so whatever fire I take, it won't encompass anyone but me.
"Look out!" I yell, loud and strong enough to startle my escorts and, I hope to God, the crush of onlookers pressing ever closer against the barricades. I hear the crack of the rifle's discharge and a shredding in my back, impact and pain like only a bullet can really cause. I've been shot plenty of times- it is, understandably, part of the job description- but something gets hit inside and I feel it, my lung, as something pops and most of my air is suddenly gone. There's a strange, cold pain across the front of my chest and I know the bullet went through, must be lodged in the stone steps. It's staggering. It feels as though my heart's been ripped out.
I could swear to God I think I hear Sharon's voice as I fall.
There's light in my eyes, warm and bright, and the sharp edges of cut stone under me aren't the same width, the same number as the ones I was walking up just moments before. I try to breathe and it's too humid, though there's a secondary wetness, thick and coppery, in my throat. It should be more bewildering, the sudden shift in climate, in the quality of the air; the fact that all the sound seems to have gone out of the world, the screaming and hysteria, gone, the sound and the fury, gone.
Faulkner took the title of that book from a Shakespearean soliloquy. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time, and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. I can't remember which I read first, Faulkner or Shakespeare, just that they both came after Twain, and after... everything, I have to admit, it seems a small thing to be concerned about in the face of dying.