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madhyanas · 3 years

Text

a strumming of nerves

“Take it,” Din whispers, hissing between his teeth. He’s pleading. “Take it, destroy it. Anything. Just don’t leave me alone with it.”

Read this on AO3!

Characters: Din Djarin & Boba Fett

Rating: T/PG-13

Word Count: 2k

Warnings/Ratings: Post-S2. Boba Fett POV. Haunted Darksaber/Din’s Haunted AU. Sleepwalking. Implied possession. Not horror, but creepy vibes for sure.

Notes: this au was originally created by @keldabekush, @kyberpistol and others! i’m just messing around with it. good luck trying to parse through this one lads idk how it’ll go

masterlist

———

There’s a noise keeping Boba awake.

It’s a thrumming. Quiet enough to settle into the background, seep into the rocky palace walls, it’s almost innocent. He could almost mistake it for the whine of some desert gnat that snuck in underground.

Almost.

But in the months since he and his companions have settled here, lying awake and staring at the ceiling of his palace quarters has never invited such a sick feeling to his stomach. It’s not nausea — he’s well acquainted with that. Kamino, Geonosis, Coruscant, Tatooine. Nausea has followed him like a diseased shadow.

This is different. He calls it anticipation, for to hear a noise and feel fear is foolishness he’s long outgrown.

The noise doesn’t get louder. The snaked, coiled thing growing in the pit of his stomach gets heavier, and heavier.

Just as he feels he may be crushed into the soft sheets by whatever waking night-terror has decided to sit on his chest, Boba sits up. In fact, he gets out of bed, swings his legs over the edge to touch the chilly stone floor, and steps outside. He’s always preferred doing things, anyway.

There’s nothing out of the ordinary as Boba stares out into the empty throne room. Thin, slivered shadows and hollow caverns. There’s nothing besides that kriffing noise, he thinks sourly, tiredly, before he turns his head.

Someone is standing in the hallway.

Danger.

At first he doesn’t believe it. A simple silhouette that Boba can barely make out in the dark. Something about it doesn’t quite seem real, as if that same waking night-terror hasn’t yet been rubbed from his eyes. Boba blinks. Its outline is blurry, encircled by a slim ring of darkness and seeming to shift in and out of focus. Moonlight doesn’t touch the shape, doesn’t even creep near.

Boba doesn’t approach either. Not even when he recognises the figure. The shoulders, the stance. He can feel in his bones that in the inky blackness hides a scruffy jaw and sad, weathered eyes. “Djarin?”

Din does not respond. He continues to stand there, staring silently down at the floor, which throws the figure’s identity into question because Din is polite to a fault. Fennec had laughed about it when they’d first met the man; a bounty hunter with manners.

What’s wrong with the figure, Boba realises, is that it’s still. Too still. He squints. His eyes aren’t what they used to be, and it’s dark, but he doesn’t think ‘Din’ is… breathing.

The very wrongness of the situation has his fingers twitching for a weapon that isn’t there.

Boba is beginning to think he should have carried a blaster.

“Din,” he calls, more urgently. “What are you doing?”

Silence, again. A sudden gust of wind whistles outside the window, churning sand against rocky architecture. It scrapes.

Boba’s frown deepens. This isn’t right.

The figure then turns — though that isn’t the right word for the movement. It’s a kind of swaying, as if the body can’t quite settle its centre of gravity and settles for a light, weightless bobbing around a fixed point. Almost like dangling. There is no rustling of cloth, no scrape of foot against sandstone floor.

Against his better judgement, Boba glances down. Both of the figure’s feet are flat on the ground.

Of course, his rational mind whispers. What were you expecting?

This ‘Din’, still standing at the other end of the hallway, now faces him directly. And gripped tightly in his left hand is the source of that infernal thrumming.

The Darksaber. Ignited and ready for battle, as it always has been.

Now, technically, pointed at Boba. The figure doesn’t turn away. The light it gives off is sickly, splattering Din’s shirt with the same strange, inverse not-glow the blade itself emanates.

It reminds him of a fish, of all things. One he’d read about, so many years ago. The type that suckers in prey with a shining, blinding light.

A throb in his temple makes itself known, winding the tension in his spine even tighter. When did the thrumming get so loud? It’s everywhere; it bites up his legs and punctures the soft spots between his ribs. A clawed hand crushing a spoilt fruit in its grasp.

Boba clenches his fists to stop himself from covering his ears, nails biting into the flesh of his palms. The sound is more piercing this time, with purpose and deadly aim.

Thick, oozing cold settles in his gut. There is only one possible target in this room.

It gets louder. And louder. It ebbs and flows like the tide but so much more vicious. It doesn’t stop; the noise simmers and bubbles and rings in his ears, resounding through the hallway so strongly it shakes his teeth to the tender, aching nerves and pounds at the insides of his skull. It’s swarming out from behind his eyes and it doesn’t stop, why can’t it stop — the Darksaber swings upwards, ready to strike the final blow — why is this happening he should take it—

“Din!”

The figure flinches. Boba’s shout is as good as a bullet. His shoulders heave with staggering breaths. His heartbeat pulses jaggedly at his throat and he’s panting; a cold, thin sheen of sweat is draped over the back of his neck.

The Darksaber is held high above Boba’s head. The crest of a wave, frozen. Then the blade retreats with a quiet whoosh before the hilt clatters to the ground. That’s the only reason Boba realises the thrumming has stopped.

It still doesn’t feel fixed. Nothing does.

The figure stumbles forward and Din’s haggard face is suddenly awash in a sliver of moonlight. He’s a puppet cut down from his strings, crumpling to the ground.

Boba is there to catch him. As it will be.

“Easy. What happened?” he questions gruffly, too preoccupied with checking the other man over for injuries to hear just how hoarse his voice is.

But whatever state he’s in, Din is worse. He stares at some point on Boba’s shoulder with glazed, unfocused eyes. The man is sweating buckets. “I... I don’t know.”

Din’s voice is soft, as Boba has come to expect, though not reassuring. It crackles and bursts to suggest there’s mucus sitting in his airways, spitting and popping like rotting fat thrown out to sizzle on Tatooine street corners.

Perhaps it is reassuring, then, to be holding his friend so limp in his arms like this. Because Boba knows what blood in the lungs sounds like, and the distinct lack of it anywhere in the musty hallway finally brings his racing pulse something close to calm.

Boba makes a slow, calculated move to rise from the floor and lift the other man with him, but Din flinches when he feels Boba’s shoulders tense. A flinch that dissolves into faint tremors wracking his body, which Boba is loath to ignore, but it also clears the fog from his gaze somewhat.

“I’m—” Din clears his throat and forces out a hard, sharp breath. “I’m fine.” He looks Boba in the eye. “I’m fine. Thank you.”

“No, you’re not,” Boba returns dryly, though he can’t deny the weight that slips from his chest. Breathing, talking. Even with the tremors leaching from Din’s bones into his own, they’re good signs.

Din cracks a weak smile, which comes out more as a grimace. In any case, it doesn’t matter when it’s wiped away almost immediately as Din glances to the side.

Boba looks too. Next to the wall, the discarded hilt of the Darksaber stares back.

“Fett,” Din says gravely, keeping his eyes trained on the weapon. So gravely in fact, that Boba’s hackles rise. He’s speaking as if— as if his life depends on it.

“What?”

The fingers on Boba’s shoulder dig in tightly. “Take it,” Din whispers, hissing between his teeth. He’s pleading. “Take it, destroy it. Anything. Just don’t leave me alone with it.”

Boba is not a man easily surprised. But there is something inherently sickening in the crease of Din’s brow, anxious and abandoned. So much about all this is wrong.

He’s pallid, Boba realises. Din is shivering and sickly and sweaty like he’s in the slump of a fever. He’s still staring at that damned saber.

In the dark, they’re both kneeling on the ground. They are kneeling, technically, before the Darksaber itself.

And with a stubborn set of his jaw, Boba makes a decision.

He swings Din up from the ground, maintaining a stable hold on both arms and looping one round his own neck before either of them can topple back down.

“Right,” Boba barks, and Din’s head snaps up. “You’re going to get some sleep. And you’re leaving that blasted thing here.” His voice leaves no room for discussion.

As he marches them back to Din’s quarters, taking careful stock of any acute weaknesses in the other man’s posture and satisfied to find none for now, Din’s gaze remains forward. It latches onto the door with sharp, quiet focus, and the sight could make Boba grin.

The haunted look in his eyes is new territory. But determination; that, Boba can work with.

Walls of granite and sandstone are taller at night, it seems. Boba gets the fleeting sense that they’re boxed in on either side, in such narrow walkways, then shuns the thought. The palace is his territory. He has nothing to fear, here.

Still, he makes his way around the corners a touch quicker than before.

By the time they’ve gotten to Din’s door, neither of them have looked back once. It’s illogical, he knows. But they both look straight ahead without fail. As if that would keep the thrumming at bay. As if they feel the silence is any better.

Din takes a moment to push himself upright, testing his balance. “Thank you,” he says quietly. It’s sincere, which Boba can respect. He just doesn’t know what it’s for.

Settling on a nod, Boba suggests, “I’ll keep it in my quarters.” The empty sword still lies in the other corridor. “We’ll… figure things out in the morning.”

Din’s mouth flattens into a pained line, and a muscle jumps uncomfortably at his temple. Here, with a little more light, Boba can see the bags etched under the man’s eyes. He’s struck with the impression that this… sleepwalking, for lack of a better term, is not a recent development.

“Yeah,” Din mumbles. “In the morning.”

He eyes his cot as a starving man would a feast, but lingers at the boundary.

When Din speaks, Boba almost regrets waiting to hear it.

“I don’t know what it’s doing to me.”

The words are uttered with a familiar, resigned shame that drips to the floor. It puddles around Din in viscous trails, drooping his shoulders and shutting his eyes. Weighing him down for longer than a night, clearly.

“I don’t know anymore, Fett. Sometimes I can hear it talking to me. Talking. I think I might—” He wheezes out a sigh, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes as if to purge whatever he sees there.

A moment to collect himself, drag all the pieces together with string and a loose knot. Then, in a quiet, ragged voice, Din confesses, “I think I’m going insane.”

False platitudes have never come easily to Boba, and they don’t start now. His jaw is slack as he searches for the words, anything to fill that chasm, until he realises there aren’t any.

So he doesn’t say anything at all, save for a slow, sympathetic hand on Din’s shoulder. He stands with his friend.

And in the dark of the palace, Boba wonders if Din might be right.

———

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rustandyearnings · 3 years

Text

How This Ends

Loan Tran

Two weeks into quarantine I read an article in The Atlantic titled, “How the Pandemic Will End.” It still felt wildly early to make any predictions about the future and the course of the virus. It has been now over a year that I have been trying to write a response to what I read, not because of any substantial disagreement but I foresaw then what I know now to be true, that after nearly a year of pandemic life: none of this simply ends.

There are no numbers and statistics, CDC guidelines, or even well thought out epidemiological reports that captures the depth of what it means that over 2.75 million people have died from COVID-19; over half a million of them alone in the U.S. We have witnessed a year that has made everything that was terrible before, much, much worse. And we know how we got here—especially being in the belly of the beast— we know all too well what regimes of power are capable of in their commitment to greed and profit. If you are like me or if you love people like me, you may know too that the world has come to an end many times before. What is different about this ending? If anything?

It was mid-March. My partner and I were on our way to the beach for her birthday. During our drive, we got news that the airports were starting to shut down and we were uncertain of the rumors about the National Guard being deployed to ensure compliance with stay-at-home orders. The beach was still there, and still sweet as always. We celebrated her the way we love each other; we ate delicious food, we laughed. She made her family’s shrimp: Lee Adam’s Shrimp. Which is comical, she says, because this was the only dish he would ever cook, and he got it named after him. Meanwhile, the family functioned because of women who made everything else possible. Such is our lives.

The Atlantic Ocean on the coast of North Carolina in mid-March is wind-swept, vast, very quiet. The sand becomes these large mountains to be trekked over before the water meets your eyeline. But once you see it, you know exactly where the ocean departs the sky. It was terribly cold. Yet, I was grateful to be by the water as our world began to shake us into conference calls and organizing meetings. Within just a few short hours of our Governor declaring lock down, we had formed the United for Survival and Beyond coalition. And knowing the year we were going to have and coming out of years of pavement pounding work, we were already exhausted. Deeper than the exhaustion is the truth that we must stick together, and we must find a way to continue on, especially now, with the cards so clear on the table: some of us will live and some of us will die. And there will be no logic to the madness.

The political work is instinctual to me; it makes sense in any crisis to bring together as many people as possible to understand a situation and to then take action. But the political work is also sometimes slow moving, even when we are all speeding and incredibly busy. So, I did other work that I felt, by my own standards, was more tangible. Like organizing a group chat of the queers I know who need medication on a regular basis. Or joining the local Mutual Aid Groups (and then promptly leaving all of the groups, which was simply a matter of exiting the Signal threads). Making a phone tree that was unreasonably the size of a phone book itself was an early action, too. And of course, cooking. There have been gallons upon gallons of pho. And gumbo. And at least 1,000 meatballs. Anything to attempt at satiating what I knew would become a growing hunger inside of me for a normalcy that still has not yet returned.

Things were deteriorating quickly all around me. By March’s end, my mom and I are on hold with her retirement company. She wants to get her money out of her account before the stock market steals it all away. This economic system routinely comes tumbling down for her; and often does it too line the pockets of the already ultra-wealthy. She has earned her retirement from working at the same alterations shop for over 20 years. She is paid for the time it takes to hand sew sequins onto wedding gowns that cost more than her year’s entire salary. She makes the inseam of your boutique jeans go from 32” to 30” with you never knowing the difference. She helps make people feel good, never questioning their own frivolousness in paying someone else to replace a missing button on their jacket. Her job has treated her well. This pandemic was beginning to test it as she’s filed for unemployment, without assistance from her bosses. The alliances that had shaped her life up until this point were beginning to fall apart, as is the case for so many of us.

It would become easier in the summer, but even then, the sweaty walks and the sitting outside in the beating sun just to eat a meal with someone who I wasn’t also sleeping with most nights began to tire me. I was unsatisfiable. I am lucky to have eaten many good meals, celebrate even more pandemic birthdays, and have extra money to keep supporting my parents’ and sister’s bills in between our socially distanced visits. Things would seem relatively calm for some weeks, when I felt like the weather wasn’t badgering on me. Which is to also say, that when things felt turbulent, it really just meant I was incredibly sad.

As I’ve been writing this piece in my mind, mulling over—as I usually do—which details feel relevant enough to evidence in words, the world around us has danced to the precipice of something new and back again. In between it all, I have had some of the most elaborate dreams of my life, the dreams at the heart of how I wish life could be.

I am home in Viet Nam. The sky is a dreamy pink, small stripes of orange and some residual blue as the sun sets and the moon takes over. I am sitting by the water and before me stretches a few miles of the bay. On the other side, mountains: spotted gray from granite and green from trees. I think to myself, “this is beautiful” and I take out my phone so I don’t forget what this looks like. My mom is here with me and it is quiet and perfect. Standing in line waiting to buy coffee from a street vendor, I think to myself, “wow, I get to be here,”; there are children and their parents who look my kin weaving around my stillness on the side of the road. I smile at someone I clock to be like me: a little odd, short haired, sweet looking in the face, stern and tough but kind in spirit. Then I wake up. It’s a dream. And all I know is that it’s a beautiful, perfect dream.

While time stretched and I could dream and I could travel in my mind, buoyed by my memories, telling stories that after the 3rd or 4th re-telling feels almost untrue, time also pulled me back to reality. To the everyday where I had few answers for the big question of: what now?

So what of time now? What is its worth? And what is worth it? I wear a watch every day still and I check my calendar still. And I still want Fridays to feel how Fridays are supposed to feel, still: they should release me. I still want to wake up slow on a Sunday, my favorite day, still. Things feel numbered and open all at once. Do I measure the worth of my life in this way or that? Do I consider tragedy to be where we start or is it having a witness to it that makes the clock run? Do I count the pints of soup I have made? What about the distance between us? There have been more cardinals than usual, but I’m really not counting. I do miss the children in the streets and the laughter beaming from their hands. Making sense of quiet and calling this place, my ever-growing city of just nearly 270,000 people, a ghost town seems a little defeatist; some days it seems just right, and some days it feels like an opening: to stop counting the time.

There is a slowness of this period that I have come to appreciate, even as it frustrates me. The slowness to remember and reconsider and re-learn the basic unit of relating: care; to care for each other and to care for ourselves. And we are being subject to the realities of care’s absence: there are millions of people—while they toil and make our world turn, even against the heaviest measures of despair—are disregarded as undeserving of housing, of health(care), of food, of life itself.

These systems of violence and domination continue to evolve, as showcased by this next phase of neoliberalism, with its elite colors and sloganeering. Coca-Cola racial justice investments and Nike’s you can do it to end racism and NFL’s $250,000,000 check to shut it (what, exactly?) down. Our task is more urgent than ever, yet there is still, simply this: you and I making a road where perhaps previously there was not, where perhaps previously there were, and it had been bombed or torn apart.

I am on the eve of my second pandemic birthday. And between the last time I dared contemplate how this ends and this moment now, there have been attempted coups and multiple mass shootings; there have been more vaccines distributed in the 1st world and essentially none for our sisters, brothers, and kin to the global south. Schools in my city are reopening and the people who suffer are made to blame each other.

A pandemic of this kind, through which a virus has served as the vehicle sounding the sirens of human plight, has the potential to lure us towards conclusions about the ever-deepening crises of white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism that will be regretful for us in the long-term. Namely, while it is true many things are outside of our control, like how a virus may mutate or transmit, there is so much more that is within our control.

We have witnessed that even in the middle of a pandemic, our people have risen up across the globe to declare that there must be another way to live. What deserves to be said again and again is that on one hand there is the science of this pandemic and the science of greed which profits on sickness; on the other is clear the science of solidarity; the science of organizing; the science of returning people back to each other; a sense of attention, a regard for care, an interest in ourselves and each other and the planet as people and places worthy of a world different than what centuries of violence and domination have conditioned and forced us toward.

At last, I do not know what the end of this pandemic means. But it seems to the hopeful, revolutionary optimist in me, that we have tried our raggedy best this year. I have appreciated more than ever our attempts at an honesty we may not have been willing to demonstrate. It seems to me that I haven’t been the only one to lie about how much I don’t know. And if you are looking for a script right now, about how to be, or how to cope, or how to regard yourself as belonging to those around you who do not look like you or speak like you or understand as you understand, I hope you’ll remember that there is no one else to make the future but us if we are to see ourselves in it.

I am embarrassed by my desperate need for things to return to normal. I am so desperate that I lay awake at night: wanting something I know I cannot have and the intelligent part of me knows that if I could have it, it would not be good for me or the people I love. The desperation is also a grief, fear, fatigue. But I also lay awake some nights taking audit of my gratitude; that beside me is my lover deep in restful sleep, that somehow in the morning our hands always find each other; and when we get out of bed, to make breakfast, or step outside: there is another day that affords me the time to learn how to be more human, and perhaps that is what this is worth. And those of us who still have it in us, and even those of us who feel that we have lost it, we must help this situation by becoming more and more human, as that is the only way I would want this to end.

This piece is dedicated to my dear friends who have kept me this year, in particular Zaina, Mindy, Margo, and Nadeen. It is also dedicated to our beloved Elandria (E) Williams, may they continue to rest in piece and know that we are taking their mandate for us to care, seriously. It is dedicated to the best pandemic pal and partner I could have ever asked for, who has also vowed to return the favor next pandemic, Chantelle. This is dedicated to the streets, to the uprisings, to all people everywhere who believe life doesn’t have to be this way, that we are so much more—these people include city workers, educators, youth and students, organizers, healthcare workers, and more. Thanks for the example of your lives.

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elatedmarvel · 7 years

Text

Voicemails

Steve Rogers x reader

Summary: Steve saves voicemails from you

Warnings: injuries, some blood, character death

My Masterlist

The house is dark and quiet when he gets back home. He tries to be as stealthy as he can. Toeing off his shoes and setting down keys and wallet in the foyer, he walks up the stairs and into the master bedroom. It’s been a hard, testing day and all he wants is to hear your voice. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, he pulls out his cellphone and goes to voicemails. He clicks on the first saved one.

“Hi Steve. It’s (Y/N), but you knew that cause you have caller ID.” he chuckles quietly to himself. “Anyways… I justed wanted to call and run some paperwork by you before I officially submit it. Not that I’m inept at doing the job or anything! I’d just like a pair of eyes to go over them, not that that’s all you are… Oh! And to thank you, I’d like to take you out to eat. You can choose the restaurant since you’re doing me this huge favor, which isn’t going to take long I promise!”. It all come out rushed as words flowed into the next and Steve barely was able to understand the words you had spewed. One of the many things he loved about you, you would talk a mile a minute when you were nervous, or excited.

“God, that sounded like a date didn’t it? I’m not asking you out or anything… Not that I wouldn’t love to go out with you!” He can hear your nervousness and the way you over analyzed the statement. “I just don’t know if you see me that way and you know what forget I said anything about liking you. God, (Y/N) shut up! Anyway, please call me when you get this message and if I haven’t scared you off.” A smile lights up his face every time he hears that message. Steve saved the voicemail a few days later, part of him had known that he would want it later on. He had called you back the minute he heard the voicemail and just as awkwardly asked you out.

The second voicemail was just as cute, full of your excited chatter. “STEVE! I know you’re in Bali, or was it Luxembourg? But! Guess who gets to go on their first solo mission?! ME! Well you probably guessed that cause I set it up but still!” He remembers how a burst of pride had filled his chest when he heard this. You were a great agent, the best of your class, and he was happy that SHIELD had seen your potential. “Fury told me that if all goes well I could be a potential candidate for the Avengers! THE AVENGERS STEVE!” You had gotten so loud and squealy that he had to move the phone away from his ears for a second. “That also means I get to see more of you! Or you would get to see more of me? Either way, I hope this goes well! Wish me luck you dork.”

Before he had heard this voicemail the first time he had seen the after effects of your mission. He just set foot back into the building after his mission and was immediately informed that you were in the med bay with serious injuries. His heart stopped for a moment and he sprinted to get to you. The first thing he had seen was all the blood and bruising. A large laceration on your thigh and multiple smaller ones on your arms and cheek. He thought he might throw up at the thought of you in pain and all the blood you were losing. But, then he saw your face. Even while getting stitches, you had a blinding smile. Turns out, the mission was not only successful, but you had managed to save a small family that had gotten in the crossfire.

Your eyes met Steve’s. Before you could say anything he had pulled you into his chest and murmured how proud of you he was and how much he loved you. That was the first time those words had been uttered and you started crying, overloaded with happiness. You attacked him with kisses and I love yous. After a few days and you were more or less healed, you were officially an Avenger.

“Hey handsome” the third voicemail started. “I know we aren’t allowed to see each other yet, but I just wanted to say that I love you.” Those words still sent shivers down his spine.

“You are the most amazing and good person Steve. You lost everything and still came out fighting and loving and caring on the other side. And as cruel and selfish as this sounds, I’m glad you were frozen for 70 years. It brought you into my life and I honestly don’t know what I would do without you Steve Rogers. ” He could hear the tears in your eyes, and couldn’t agree more. Everything he had gone through was heart wrenching and painful and he had thought about giving up at times. But, now he understood that you had been the universe's plan and he would go through it all again in a heartbeat if it meant being with you.

“I never used to believe in that fairy book kind of love, you know the one that is so earth shattering and world tipping that you could feel like you could drown? But then you walked, or stumbled actually, into my life and it all clicked. I totally get why everyone wants it, it’s amazing and addictive and it makes me feel like I could do anything because you’re by my side. I love you so much Steven Grant Rogers.” His own tears start to prick at his eyes as he tries to calm his breathing down.

“Anyways, I have to go, Nat and Wanda are glaring daggers at me. I’ll see you tomorrow handsome. I’ll be the one in white” he hears you giggle and the line clicks.

That voicemail had solidified that he wanted so badly to spend the rest of his life with you. He had fallen asleep that night with a smile on his face despite the fact that his bachelor party had been a disaster and Bucky’s hair had caught on fire and he missed sleeping tangled up with you. The next day had been the second best day of his life.

“Steve. I hate you at this moment, I hate you so much” he hears you grit through your teeth.

“I’m trying to push out your very stubborn daughter after she has been playing with my bladder and kicking my ribs for months and you’re not even here. I hate you.” He knows you didn’t mean it. When you two had found out that you were pregnant, no one was as happy as you had been. You had spent nine months with a genuine smile on your face. Even through the morning sickness, the swelling, and the uncomfortableness that went along with carrying a child. “If you miss the birth of your daughter I will hunt you down to the ends of the world and torture you for nine months Steve.” He had been on an urgent mission, despite his reluctance to leave you so close to your due date. But, you had pushed him out with your confident smile and told him that you and your daughter would be fine. He was on his way back to you as fast as he could when you had left the voicemail.

“Steve please. I’m so scarred. It hurts so bad and I can’t do this without you.” The tone of your voice shifting, tears streaming down your face now. “What if something goes wrong? What if I’m a bad mother? I don’t think I can do this. Steve please, just come fast” you begged, the panic very clear in your voice. “I love you” you choked out.

4 hours after the voicemail, Sarah Rogers was born. Steve had reached you just as you were about to push. You both had cried and couldn’t stop staring at the bundle of love. All fear had disappeared once you saw her little face, you both could and would do anything for the tiny life in your arms.

The fifth saved voicemail had come 1 and a half years later. “Steve, I’m so happy” you had started. “You were right, you’re always right. How do you do that? Did that serum give you the power to see into the future? Sorry, got side tracked” he hears your laugh.

“I’m pregnant! Yup! We’re gonna have another baby! Sarah’s gonna be a big sister.” his heart swells at this moment again. “I bet you’ll guess the gender correctly again too. Damn you and your intuition Rogers. Oh! We really should move out of the compound and into a house. Two kids are gonna be a handful and we’ll need more space. Maybe we could move back to Brooklyn? Oooh! Into a brownstone with nice crown molding and granite counters and a backyard and a bay window. We need a bay window Steve!” he chuckles and looks around, realizing that the house you two had bought matched that exact description.

“I’m so excited Steve! Gosh, I feel like I’m flying. I have you and Sarah and now this new baby, I’m pretty sure I’m complete now. I love you so so so so so much! Sarah too! Oh and the new little peanut. I can’t stop smiling, I probably look insane. Oh well. See you both when I get home!” Steve smiles remembering this moment. You had come home and told him in person because he hadn’t checked his phone. He cried, you cried and picked up Sarah and held her tight. 8 months later, James Rogers had come into the world. He remembers bringing an apprehensive Sarah to meet Jamie. She instantly wrapped her little chubby arms around him and kissed his face. He swears that his heart was so full could have burst. His life was complete now. The best day of his life tied with the birth of his children.

Steve gets to the last voicemail and hesitates. He knows what he’s about to hear. He’s listened to this over and over again, and every time he wishes that he could change the outcome. The voicemail that starts the worst day of his life.

“Steve” you breath, he can hear the strange calm in your voice. “Babe, I need you to know how much I love you. I’ve loved you ever since you fell into my office, even if I didn’t know it yet. It kept growing and growing until it consumed me in the best way possible. I used to hate those people that said chessy stuff like you complete me or you make me the happiest person alive. But it’s so so true. I totally get it. You make me a better person, Steve. Your kindness, selflessness, and passion have made me feel so safe and loved. You gave me the best two gifts in the world. Oh god, I love them so much it hurts.” His heart tenses up at the mention of your children.

“You’ll never know how much you mean to me Steve. I mean it with everything I have. I would be happy to walk to hell and back if it means getting to be with you and our children. They are the light of my life” he hears the quiver in your voice now. “I love them more than I could put into words. You have to tell them how much I wanted them, how much I loved them. You guys are my world.” He breaks down even more.

“I know you’ll raise them so well Steve. If I know you and them, they’ll be spitfires that won’t stand for anything but justice and kindness. I just wish I could be there to see them grown up” you sob.

“But, babe. I don’t think I’ll be coming home.” He has to pause the voicemail because he can’t hear anymore. The blood is pounding in his head and everything is blurry from the tears. When he pulls himself together a little bit, he resumes.

“I want you to know right now that I have no regrets. Everything, and I mean everything, has been perfect. You are the love of my life Steven Grant Rogers. The best person I’ve ever known, and the best father to our children. I love you guys with everything I have, to my last breath.” Your breathing sounds labored now, and your voice growing weak. “I love you all so much” you promise one last time before the line goes dead.

Steve sits there sobbing in the lonely bedroom. It’s been two years since he’s heard your voice in person. Seen the way your eyes light up when you see your children, heard the lilt of your voice when you spoke to him, the way you would get sidetracked and lost in your own head sometimes. Two years since he last got to hold you and tell you how much he loves you. Two years since he’s felt complete. He thanks whatever god is out there that he had saved some of his favorite voicemails from you. They had provided him with strength when he thought he would crumble, laughs when had forgotten how to, and brought back moments that he would cherish forever.

Wiping his eyes, he walks out of the room and down the hallway. Stopping at the first door, he quietly sneaks in. He smiles when he sees that Sarah has snuck into Jamie’s room and they’re both curled up on his bed, fast asleep. They looked and acted so much like you that he could have sworn you were here. He kisses each of their foreheads and wraps the blanket tighter around them.

He goes back to his room and flops onto the bed, one that you had insisted on buying because it felt like sleeping on a cloud. Though the heartache was still there, knowing that he had pieces of you still to hold on to made him feel better, and the pain lessened day by day. “I love you (Y/N)” he whispers to the empty and silent room. A smile on his face as he swears he catches a whiff of your perfume and drifts away to a peaceful sleep, dreaming of you.

Author Notes: This broke my heart to write and I kinda want to write another one with the same concept, but with a fluffy ending. Feedback is always appreciated it. Thank you all so much for reading! ~J

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