Oh good you're alive! 2.0

[withmyshield]

After waking up at the Thanksgiving party, Sharon had tried like hell to keep it together, be useful, avoid feeling the panic that was probably the natural reaction to seeing the man you...someone you care about get stabbed in the chest and vanish in a cloud of knockout gas. After making sure everyone else in the room was unharmed or being looked after, she'd gone to her room for the guns. Not because she thought there'd be anything to shoot, for better or worse, but because they made her feel more in control. Then she'd started searching.

---

The guns sit untouched in the holster, her hands being full with the map on her communicator and her LED flashlight, held at a cop angle. She hates the dimmer lit places on the station with a passion, ever since the incident with the rats. Which of course makes her think of Steve, pulling her out of the wall even after she'd nearly taken his head off with a baseball bat. Well, he has to be around here somewhere, she reasons, without anything to back it up, really. Except that the station doesn't mind letting people die right in front of them, so whisking injured people away is probably a good sign.

Her search is methodical, but again, a little more based on feeling than logic; if she had been looking for anyone else, she might have started in the morgue rather than choose a path around the ship that avoided it until all other areas had been ruled out. She's spending a lot more time in unfamiliar places, since she's never seen evidence of a surgery or anything like that in her regular wanderings. But as much as she'd love to deny it, it's just something to distract herself with, and the chances of her finding Steve before the station decides to produce him are next to zero.

Comments

[theycallmecap]

Steve is beamed into the Porta Ianulis, and the last thing he remembers is acknowledging the blunt pain of Logan's claws ripping into his stomach. So he looks down immediately, and his shirt is intact, and his flesh underneath it. What the hell just happened? He pulls his communicator out of his pocket and his frown only deepens, because it's been hours.

At least they patched him up, and very well at that; he doesn't feel as if he was ever wounded.

Calling someone. That, at least, he can probably manage on the communicator, and he doesn't even really wonder if he should reach out to anybody else first. He finds her in the list of residents, and presses the icon to call Sharon as he walks towards the banquet hall.

[withmyshield]

Her first reaction when her communicator starts buzzing is blind, senseless fury. That counter-intuitive reaction like a parent has when their kid almost chokes on a hot dog or something; now that the danger might be over, she remembers that she's outraged that Steve put himself in jeopardy in the first place.

She presses the button to accept the call with shaking hands.

"Steve?"

[theycallmecap]

"I'm back," he tells her, unnecessarily, although maybe it is necessary. Maybe he could be calling her from a different plane, if the people in charge of the station wanted him to.

"And patched up. What happened after they took me?"

[withmyshield]

Nope. In spite of his tone, it's Not business as usual. It's a relief to hear his voice, but they're not actually playing that game.

"Where are you?"

[theycallmecap]

"Headed for the banquet hall," he answers, and he is because he needs to see the state the room's in, if nobody's cleaned it up. He isn't sure whether they would have; he hopes they have, just because it would mean that life went on as usual. He has no idea what happened at all after he got stabbed, and a few hours is long enough for a lot of bad to have happened.

"Where are you?" he asks, instead, because getting to see her is a plus, a very welcome plus, and then he can get his answers in person.

[withmyshield]

"No idea." She says honestly, but rather flatly. It's really the only warning anyone gets that there's a shitstorm brewing just below the eerily placid surface.

"Well. Have fun with that. I guess I'll see you around." She hangs up, shoves her communicator in her pocket, and slams the flat of her hand into the nearest wall. What an idiot!

[theycallmecap]

If it wasn't for Sharon's words - and her tone - Steve would think that he somehow managed to mess up a simple phone call, too, or that the communicator died. As it is, he lowers it from his ear, frowning at it like the comm unit is responsible for banging around a litter of kittens, and he's stopped in the hallway without even noticing. His thumb brushes the edge of the communicator as if to coax Sharon into calling back, but when she doesn't, he forces himself not to do it.

She knows where to find him, and he has to hope that she'll come, whatever the matter is.

[withmyshield]

What an idiot becomes sort of a mantra for Sharon as she makes her way back to the usual parts of the station. She's still pissed, but she needs to see his face and know for herself that he's OK.

Then she can kill him.

Maybe it isn't wrong that his first instinct on waking up is to sort out the mess that was in progress when he got hurt. But he could have waited for thirty seconds to actually check in with her first -for all he knows, she could have been concussed by a flying turkey or something. Besides which he has to know that nobody else here would worry about him like she does...

What an idiot.

So when she finds herself speechless with relief in the doorway of the function hall, it's pretty annoying.

[theycallmecap]

Everything's been cleaned up, and Steve isn't sure how to feel about that. He should go and find someone to give him some answers, find out what happened apart from three metal claws puncturing his internal organs, but he's hoping... he's hoping Sharon will actually show. He grabs a chair, and he sits. Before long, he's up and pacing, and giving her five more minutes, just five more minutes, and he's about to head over to her quarters just in case when he turns towards the door and find her standing there.

He looks at her, and after a short while, he smiles.

[withmyshield]

The smile is really the last straw. Sharon's been out of her mind for hours, and he's got the nerve to smile at her like that?

She stalks up to Steve and slaps him, hard, across his cheek. Normally she's a punching kinda girl, but she's going for emotional impact over pain.

"What the hell were you thinking?!"

[theycallmecap]

Steve did not see that one coming.

He lets his face turn with the slap, because even if he didn't see it coming he can still react to it to the best of his ability, and brings a hand to his cheek in a gesture of incredulous confusion as he looks back at a fuming Sharon.

"What was I..." It takes him another second to realize exactly how worried she must have been (he would have been, had the situation been reversed, although he can definitely say he wouldn't have hit her for it), and he drops his hand and no longer looks confused, but determined. The Steve Rogers kind of stubborn determined. "They could've hurt someone."

Mostly each other, and he's aware they ended up hurting him, but that's who he is, and if Sharon doesn't know that by now...

[withmyshield]

"They DID hurt someone! The only person in the room without the sense to run away!"

She's pretty close to angry tears now, and incredibly torn between running away so he won't see them and throwing her arms around him. Of course she knows why he did it, but that doesn't make it less insane.

[theycallmecap]

"I'm fine," Steve tells her, as if that should be a comfort, when he's so acutely aware that he's only fine thanks to the help of their captors. He doesn't know how to feel about the fact that he seems worth saving, when Shepard and Amy weren't.

"I'm fine, but I'm never going to have enough sense to run away," he repeats, and adds, and reaches for her hand. It's who he is, who he's always been, and he's never backed down, and he never will.

[withmyshield]

"I know that!" Her voice betrays her and breaks a little. Really, what's the point in expecting Steve to recognize a no-win situation? He just doesn't see things that way.

She takes his hand and lets him pull her closer, wrapping her arms around his waist. Something like relief crossed with a coma washes over her as his heart beats steadily against her cheek.

"God. You'll do anything for a little attention."

[theycallmecap]

"Gotta be it," Steve confirms, his arms warmly wrapped around her. If he can be true to himself and still get to hold her like this, really, he's not going to complain about anything.

"Explains the uniform."

[withmyshield]

"We're gonna have to discuss your order of operations, though."

She pulls back to look him in the eye, then decides it's more important to squeeze him a little more, trying hard to ignore how creepy it is that he's wearing the same clothes. Like they hadn't been perforated, along with his midsection, soaking through with blood the last time she saw them.

[theycallmecap]

Steve figures mostly he's going to have to discuss appropriate behavior with Logan and Rae - for the second time, after the throwing daggers incident - but he has a feeling saying so might get him slapped again.

"How's that?" he simply asks, instead, and when he strokes a hand through her hair, Sharon winces, and that's when he notices the bump, and frowns. "What happened to you?"

[withmyshield]

She knows he probably means specifically, but she can't resist playing with him a little.

"Funny story. I was at this party, and then some total jackass nearly got himself killed and the whole room was forced to take a little nap." She looks up and sees his expression, which is somewhere between concern and exasperation. "I think I hit it on the table, I don't really know. It's fine."

Except now that she's thinking about it [and it's been poked at], it does kinda hurt.

[theycallmecap]

"You've seen Dr Watson?" he checks, because he cares, and she could be concussed.

He hadn't even considered the possibility that everybody could have been knocked out - gassed, he assumes, like what happened to Thor and him when they tried to break through the floor. As soon as he gets an answer, he's asking about everybody else - and about Logan and Rae - but he wants to know about Sharon first.

[withmyshield]

"Uh huh. John said I was good to go." She's a professional liar, but usually she doesn't use her powers on Steve. She's just not up for the fight that would almost certainly follow, and she's hit her head way harder before and been OK.

Soon she'll have to let him go and get on with things, but the adrenaline is leeching out of her with every passing second, and she's a heartbeat away from suggesting they find a couch to [innocently] crash on.

[theycallmecap]

Steve nods, taking her word for it and not thinking for one second that she could be lying to him about this. He's relieved, honestly glad to hear it, and he smiles slightly for it, for a second. "How's everybody else?"

[withmyshield]

She finally steps back, and shakes her head to answer the question he didn't ask: is anyone else hurt?

"You were the only actual casualty. Bumps and bruises, otherwise. And nobody's seen Wolverine or Mystique since." She doesn't even try to keep the acid little edge out of her voice; tuning one or both of them up still isn't totally out of the question.

[theycallmecap]

"Yeah," he says simply, which is actually in answer to her tone. He's none too pleased with the two of them, and he sounds it. It doesn't mean he isn't hoping they're safe and sound, but still.

For now, though, he draws Sharon close again, in a warm, steady embrace, careful not to so much as brush against her bump when he kisses her hair.

"I'm glad you're alright," he tells her, quiet and a lot more private.

[withmyshield]

Ding ding! We have a winner!

Sharon changes her grip, slipping her arms from around Steve's waist and wrapping them around his neck instead.

"That's exactly what I was talking about." She kisses him like there's no tomorrow, both as a reward for getting the answer right and for the hours she spent thinking she might never see him again.

"Next time, start with that. Then I won't have to hit you." Probably.

[theycallmecap]

To his defense, Steve hadn't known that she could have been not alright, but he figures that pointing that out would not win him any more points, and he needs a couple seconds to get over that kiss, anyway, and the way emotion swelled through him with it.

"I'll always be glad you're alright," Steve tells Sharon, and he's going to be as honest as usual, which... probably won't win him any points either, but it is who he is, just like personal things will always come after general good things. That's what he means when he adds,"But I'm sure you'll hit me again."

[withmyshield]

That's very true, and she knows it. In the end, she wouldn't change him, but the obsessive need to put the well being of others over his own, to push all personal stakes so far back they're off the stove altogether -that never gets easier to take. So yeah, she's probably gonna have cause to slap him again.

But right now, they're square, and she's just going to focus on that. "To be fair, you are really annoying." She grins and kisses him again, going for a repeat performance of that dazed look.

[theycallmecap]

She gets that repeat performance, when they break the kiss after a little while, but the dazed look melts into a smile. "I'll take the hits if I get kissed like that afterwards."

Happily so.