The Captain's Journey- A Steve Rogers/Captain America fanfic

Bloody Knuckles

Steve Rogers had been working out at the gym from the moment it opened in the morning, and he intended to stay until it closed. He tried to keep painful memories from resurfacing as he pounded the punching bag in front of him. The punching bag had now flown across the room in the momentum of one of Steve's punches. Sighing, he reached into his gym bag and dug around in it before finding his water bottle.

As Steve finally ran out of water from his water bottle, he turned to see a woman walking to an unoccupied punching bag. He immediately noticed that her cheeks were quite flushed, and it didn't seem like she was flushed from working out. As she turned her head, Steve saw a single tear fall down her cheek.

Being a decent guy, he wanted to ask her if everything was alright, or if he could help her in any way, but the super-soldier part of him told him that she was suspicious because she had come down to the lower level of the gym, which usually only Steve uses because it's the older punching bag room, just before closing time, and she was scowling so hard, it looked like she was about to murder someone if she hadn't already.

Reluctantly, Steve decided to stay away unless the need arose to interfere with her. As he walked over to retrieve his punching bag, the woman had violently started punching hers. The strange part was, she wasn't wearing any type of hand protection. At all.

Steve turned to stare at her, but, she didn't seem to notice him. Something told him that he should intervene, bit he wanted to see how this would turn out.

She punched the bag harder and harder, her knuckles getting bloodier by the second. She didn't notice. She was beating the crap out of this bag and a little bit of sand had started to leak out of the bottom. She didn't notice. The bag went soaring of its chain and flying across the room. Sprinting over to it, the woman started kicking the bag.

It was then that Steve decided that something was very wrong.

"Ma'am?!" He called, trying to get her attention. His attempts at getting her attention had failed. He needed a new plan. Fast.

Steve ran up behind the woman and grabbed her around the middle. He dragged her away from what was left of the punching bag and tried to talk to her.

"Miss?! Please answer me!" He shouted at her growing more and more concerned.

She still had not stopped kicking and punching, though she was not aiming at anything, just attacking. Steve looked her in the eyes, hoping to get her to stop. It was then that he noticed that her eyes were glazed over, like she was in some sort of flashback.

Steve decided that he had to do something about her unstable condition, before anyone found out.

He wanted to make sure that she was indeed a crazy person before some government agency with a fancy acronym shipped her of to an insane asylum.