[ For all the fanfare and suffering that leads up to that point — dying is easy. You blink out, like all the things that came before, just as afraid to die as you were. Sleep, then. No more. Unless you don't, instead finding yourself elsewhere: A half-life as a spectre, flickering like the bulb in an abandoned hallway. Voices that aren't your own, tinny and echoing. For Fitz, the excess noise is routine, even if the tones and cadences sound strange. How can I face my son now? How can I? How can, how — isn't so different from How can she look at me? on a infinite, intractable loop.
At first, he remains still. Even a known voice isn't enough to wake someone glassy-eyed and far away. But a touch, sharp as icy water on his skin, is a bit like a static shock. There's a steady current in all of their connections, made electric by the empathy bond, but plugging into a familiar source may as well be a jumpstart, particularly when applied through a warm touch to his face.
Eyes screw shut, pain and confusion sparking across their haptic link. A hitched breath turns ragged. ]
Peggy. [ Not Carter. When did that change? Even if he barely glimpsed her, he knows her voice and the feel of her resolve, softened at the edges by their affinity for each other. His thoughts snag and stutter, but of course she's here. She's always here, finding him. Or he's there, finding her. They've been at this for hours. (Minutes, no, days). The warzone, the wasteland, the underworld. ]
We have to, have to — have to hurry. [ His hand flies first to his temple, then covers his ear, fingers curling and uncurling as if blocking a piercing sound. ] Get Markus out. C-Cain, 'cause they're in danger — [ It's as if he's come back online in the middle of the end. He crosses his other arm over his gut, fighting phantom pangs inside. ]
[ Wind blows through the ruins. Soot in the air. A tremble in the earth beneath their feet. ]
no subject
At first, he remains still. Even a known voice isn't enough to wake someone glassy-eyed and far away. But a touch, sharp as icy water on his skin, is a bit like a static shock. There's a steady current in all of their connections, made electric by the empathy bond, but plugging into a familiar source may as well be a jumpstart, particularly when applied through a warm touch to his face.
Eyes screw shut, pain and confusion sparking across their haptic link. A hitched breath turns ragged. ]
Peggy. [ Not Carter. When did that change? Even if he barely glimpsed her, he knows her voice and the feel of her resolve, softened at the edges by their affinity for each other. His thoughts snag and stutter, but of course she's here. She's always here, finding him. Or he's there, finding her. They've been at this for hours. (Minutes, no, days). The warzone, the wasteland, the underworld. ]
We have to, have to — have to hurry. [ His hand flies first to his temple, then covers his ear, fingers curling and uncurling as if blocking a piercing sound. ] Get Markus out. C-Cain, 'cause they're in danger — [ It's as if he's come back online in the middle of the end. He crosses his other arm over his gut, fighting phantom pangs inside. ]
[ Wind blows through the ruins. Soot in the air. A tremble in the earth beneath their feet. ]