Don't Lose Sight of Me

6

"Everything just feels fake. Imaginary." He confessed to me laying face up staring at the ceiling.

"I don't know what to tell you Steve. I promise this is very real. It's 2012, and you have been asleep for 70 years. It's okay that you're having a hard time believing, I can't make you." I told him lying next to him. I rolled on my side facing him. I tucked my arm under my head.

"I just keep thinking when I wake up, this'll all be gone." He paused for a second and didn't look at me. "And we'll be home."

"Hey," I said lightly placing a hand on his, "Home is wherever you make it. You're here now. This is your home, and when you wake up it'll still be here. That I guess is reality, it'll always be there when you wake up."

"Will you be here when I wake up?" He asked me turning to look at me curiously.

"Only if you want me to." I answered him, his reply was a simple hand squeeze and a relaxed sigh.

"Do you know what's real?"

"Uh, this conversation is real cliché." Steve chuckled and rolled his eyes.

"I was gonna say you are real annoying."

"Yeah, sure," I retorted in a knowing tone.

"Go to sleep Anna, and when you wake up you can explain this reality more to me." Steve sighed like there was more than one reality to choose from. He finally closed his eyes. And when I woke he was there right beside me.

I just had to wake up.

Wake up.

Wake up.

Wake up.

I woke up. I didn't know where I was. I still don't know where they took me. I know for awhile I maybe made it to the hospital. Then they flew me somewhere. And then I was a prisoner.

But let's start at the hospital.

To be honest, I don't remember much of the hospital. I'm not even sure if I actually made it to one. But if I did, and I think I did, I'll tell you how I think it went.

I was probably hooked up to a number of different machines. Steve was probably a 6'2, 240 pound mess of a man. Hospitals give him a lot of anxiety, especially if I'm the one hurt. I remember he confessed to me one day about his anxiety around hospitals (not that it was something I already didn't know). I died a few years ago, and he watched with the machines humming behind him. We both hate medical procedures in general. A lot of time we don't get enough pain killers, and once Steve didn't even get enough anesthesia. Not to even mention the times Steve had to go to the hospital when he was younger. He had been to numerous doctors, none of which cured him. Hospitals, and Steve did not go well. But I digress.

The others probably came to see me in the hospital. Well I hope they did, I would have. I imagine Tony pacing back and forth fighting his own anxious tendencies. Natasha probably sat next to Steve, flipping through a magazine. She was probably cool and collected on the outside. She always is. Bruce probably had read through the doctor's report. I don't know how beat up I was at this point, all I know is the final count. Clint would have been the one to get them food and coffee. I imagined they came in, stayed for awhile, and left. I imagine if they came, they came for Steve. I hoped they did, because he needed the comfort.

I guess by then they knew our big secret. You can't hide it when you're the patient in a hospital. Or maybe Steve just told them. Maybe they already knew, or they just found out for themselves. I guess I'll never know what they thought about it.