To Love Is To Destroy

Chapter 2

Stefan sat in the ruined bar, nursing the entire bottle of good whiskey. At least, he assumed it would be good whiskey. He couldn't really tell good from bad; with his limited palate all alcohol tasted the same.

He hadn't drunk much in his life, the memory of what had happened to his father still sharp like the smoke that stung his nose.

Still, he tried. He had drained four bottles before she found him, and he was still clear headed. He could hear her crunch over the rubble.

"You know, Doctor Erskine said this would make me better," he said, watching her pick her way through the debris. "Said that the serum wouldn't just affect my muscles, it would affect my cells. Create a protective system of regeneration and healing. Which means, um, I can't get drunk. Did you know that?"

She nodded, careful -- as though he were back in his old tenement with his mom, watching his dad crawl into a bottle. Waiting for the moment he would snap, glass flung into the wall as an imagined offense ignited a temper soaked in spirits. His world pitched and yawed around him. Patricia merged with his mother for a moment, and it rushed up to claim him, swallow him up. Disgusted with himself, he set the bottle down and pushed it away.

"Your metabolism burns four times faster than the average person. He thought it could be one of the side effects." Her voice was quiet, but she took the bottle and set it on the bar before taking a seat across from him. "Stefan..."

"Did you know we grew up together?" he asked, abrupt as he stared through her. "He and I even went to the same orphanage when Ma passed. He took all the s-stupid..."

He swallowed, staring at his hands. She reached out and covered one of them, or tried, her slim fingers dwarfed by large palms and thick, strong digits. He turned his hand over and cupped hers between his palms.

"You realize he made a choice, right?" she asked. He swallowed, looking up at her with red rimmed eyes. "He did. He made the choice to step in. And by sitting here stewing in this, you're belittling his sacrifice. James Barnes was a good man. So are you. You can't trade one for the other, so don't even try."

She wiggled her fingers, and he released her, letting her stand. She moved around to his side, cupping his jaw.

"Heroes aren't all they're cracked up to be sometimes," she said. "But it's better that you're making a difference. We're making the final push tomorrow, trying to corner Schmidt. Would Barnes want you to stay behind and try to drink yourself stupid?"

He shook his head.

"Right." He was mesmerized by her, the strong square set to her shoulders, the iron rigidity of her stance mixed with actual softness. He reached up and brushed a thumb across her cheek, and she leaned into it.

"Why didn't I ever see your name?" he asked quietly. "Was it the serum, you think?"

Her eyes widened, and he ached to kiss her. She nibbled her lip and looked down.

"My soul mate..." she said, her voice soft. "I met her a long time ago. We were never going to be together, so we cherished the time we had."

Stefan nodded, understanding.

"I never had one," he said. She took his hand, clasping it between her own. "I've never known -- anything like it. Bucky took me aside right before the train. He showed me his wrist."

A name, written in fate on the inside of his best friend's left wrist.

"What will his soul mate do? Will they even know?"

"I knew," she said. "Her name faded out. She got married, had children. That life wasn't for me."

Stefan swallowed. "Not ever?"

She shook her head. "No one knows the future. Come on, we have a transport to catch."

She slipped between his fingers like gossamer, and he was helpless to do anything but follow.

"There's not gonna be a safe landing, but I can try to force it down," he said, struggling with the controls. The Valkyrie was sluggish, turning what seemed only a quarter of an inch off its current heading with the pace of a snail. Stefan's hair was matted with his own blood, an already healing cut splitting his bottom lip open.

He heard the crackle of the radio, and it was as if time seemed to slow. He could hear himself talking to Patricia, but he was musing about everything he'd miss. He could see it all in his mind's eye, flashing through neurons that were bolstered by science to process faster than anyone alive.

It gave him plenty of time to reflect on his own mortality.

"I'll-I'll get Howard on the line. He'll know what to do."

"There's not enough time. This thing's moving too fast and it's heading for New York. I gotta put her in the water."

Walks in the park. A diner with terrible coffee, but it’s okay, because she took tea anyway, and he wasn't picky.

"Please don't do this. W-we have time. We can work it out."

Movies. His arm around his girl and her warmth against her side. She'd lean her head against his shoulder and he could tuck his nose into her hair.

"Right now I'm in the middle of nowhere. If I wait any longer a lot of people are gonna die. Patricia, this is my choice."

Patricia in white, walking down the aisle. Standing beside him in the old bowery church, the priest blessing them in Latin while the crown of flowers she wears fills his nose until he almost wants to sneeze. She looks like she'll kill him if he does, though.

"Patricia..."

"I'm here."

Making love in the shadows of a rainstorm. Their linked fingers against the bed, slow, so slow. Like it was meant for them to always be slow and languid, to sip where others would gulp. Whispered words and quiet breaths, mingling in the darkness that dappled the windows with fat droplets of a summer storm.

"I'm gonna need a rain check on that dance."

"All right, a week next Saturday at the Stork Club."

Patricia, her belly swollen with life, budding like the spring did around her, sitting in the park and reading. Stefan next to her, holding another sandy haired child, with his father's bright blue eyes and his mother's stubborn tilt to his jaw.

"You've got it."

"Eight o'clock on the dot. Don't you dare be late, understood?"

Sketching by the fire, his wife tucked next to him. He asks her if she regrets not going with her soul mate. She looks at the stairs, where her children sleep, and smiles. She admits she never did. Not since Stefan came along. Content, he kisses her hair.

"You know, I still don't know how to dance," he said, pulling his gloves off. Soon it wouldn't matter if his hands were cold. He needed to see it. Had to be sure.

"I'll show you. Just be there."

His wrists were pale in the cold, the broken windows sending wind whipping through the cabin and stealing his breath with the chill. There were no markings, save the battle damage. He rubbed a thumb across the opposite wrist as the ground crept closer and closer.

"We'll have the band play something slow," he said, taking a breath and closing his eyes. It would be just like falling asleep. "I'd hate to step on your--"

The nose of the Valkyrie crumpled, sending the craft skipping across the water like a stone. Stefan was thrown, landing on the aisle, the breath knocked out of him as the plane hurtled to its icy doom.

The water poured in the open windows, and he shivered as he felt it enter his boots. It was fast, too fast, a torrent and then a flood as the remaining glass broke and he sank beneath the depths.

He was cold. So cold.

It was not, in fact, like falling asleep. His body, primed for his own survival and honed to the peak of human ability, struggled to stay above water on instinct. His lips turned blue as the cabin filled with water, and when he finally went under, he inhaled what felt like gallons of water.

He drifted in and out of consciousness, settling down to finally land on the floor of the plane, his shield beside him. The bubbles stopped forming on his lips, and his eyes closed. The ship slid down into the darkness of the ocean, finally coming to rest on an ice shelf, and Stefan Roosevelt was laid to rest.

He stood in an unfamiliar place, staring blindly at cars that crammed the street, bright colors, loud noises. He couldn't breathe, couldn't think. He was surrounded by men in body armor, and he spun, looking up at the grey, angry sky.

"At ease, soldier! Look, I'm sorry about that little show back there, but we thought it best to break it to you slowly." Stefan turned to regard the bald man in a dark trench coat standing there, one eye covered with a dark patch. His brain was whizzing a million miles a minute, calculating attack trajectories.

His hand clenched, looking for his shield.

"Break what?" he asked, calves tensing for a leap. He could dig his fingers into whatever was left behind the eye patch, disabling the leadership and making his escape in the confusion. It wasn't exactly like he was immune to bullets, but he sure as hell could dodge them --

"You've been asleep, Cap, for almost seventy years," the man said, tossing a newspaper at his feet. Stefan, numb and surrounded by men who could easily kill him, knelt and picked it up.

July 22, 2011.

His mind reeled, trying to process. His knees wanted to buckle; his will kept him upright. He stared at the man regarding him with a mixture of pity and sadness, and he wanted to punch him, because he didn't know.

Faces, places, memories rolled in like water through broken windows, and he was drowning all over again, on dry land with the smog of a large city in his lungs like the fog of war.

"You gonna be okay?" the man asked, and Stefan heard him as if he were speaking through static. Molasses gripped his limbs as he turned and looked around again.

"Yeah." He stood straighter, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Yeah. I just...I had a date."

I'm sorry, Patricia.