Agent of Chaos: A Captain America Fanfiction

Chapter Four: The Golden Pair

          I found him, what was left of him. His bouncing curls, his twinkling eyes, they were no more. He didn't even have a head. The majority of his body was nothing more than a scorch mark on the ground, and what was left was scattered about. My throat seemed to close as sobs wracked my body. Where was he? He couldn't be the splattered mess in front of me. He was just- he was just about to celebrate our victory over the aliens less than a minute ago. Tears distorted the already messy image, and I felt them slipping down my cheeks. Falling to my knees, I sensed something beneath my hand. Looking down I began to wretch. It was his hand. The hand I had just been holding. It wasn't fair. IT WASN'T FAIR!

          "No, Jamie, no. Please, no." From the corner of my tear-filled eye, I saw Captain America approaching me. "Jamie, get up. Please. Get up, Jamie! You can't leave me. We're the Golden Pair. We're supposed to fight for justice forever. You and me forever. PLEASE!" I was clinging to his severed hand while weeping. I felt as though a hole had been torn straight through me even though I was intact. The hole seemed to consume every last bit of my joy and my sanity because all I could do was cry in the middle of that dangerous street. There would be no body to give to his mother and uncle. There would be no badge to hang on the Wall of the Fallen. There would be no more insignificant arguments or rambunctious laughter during stake outs. There was no more Jamie.

          Captain America stopped about ten feet away and bent to pick up a discarded weapon. All I could do was stare emptily at him. He glanced at me with sorrow in his blue eyes and I felt that, even just for that short moment, we were connected. His eyes bled with grief that seemed to mimic the hole I felt in my heart. He knew my pain, and now I knew his. He whispered "I'm sorry" that I heard but couldn't understand, and then dashed away to fight once more. It wasn't his fault Jamie was...was not here anymore. It was theirs. I threw my watering eyes to the sky and saw the aliens buzzing around. I could hear them destroying my city, my life, everything I loved. They needed to be stopped!

          Before leaving him, I slipped a small silver ring off his mutilated hand. The dull silver glinted in what little light there was like Jamie's eyes when he laughed. I put the ring into the breast pocket of my uniform right by my heart. As I stood up, something inside me begged to just stay there and wait for death. I was tired- I had given all I had to give and the fight took more than that. It took Jamie. But that was precisely why I had to get up. Those bastards needed to pay for what they had done. I took all my grief and all my pain, physical and emotional, and shoved to the deepest recesses of my mind to be forgotten for at least a short while. I cleared my head and prepared to do what I knew I could; I prepared to fight.

          Everything around me shimmered with such lucidity that I had to question if I was truly awake. It was so clear that things seemed to move in slow motion. I felt everything, heard everything, saw everything. I was ready to kill fueled by a burning rage never felt before. This was the rage that could only be born from love and true sorrow.

          Grasping my stolen gun, I marched towards the area where the four aliens had been. Perfect. There was a flying scooter thing hovering as if expecting its master to climb back on to it. Well, the ownership had just changed. The machine wobbled as I hoisted myself upon it. Pressing a silvery blue button, I heard it whine to life. As I scooted forward the machine seemed to envelope my head- it would offer good protection. I sped upwards until I crested multiple different skyscrapers, then as if knowing what to do, I placed my hands on a slightly slimy bar and pressed forward.

          I weaved through the city with incredible speed and accurate aim. Dozens of the aliens were ended by my hands, my small, human hands. However, I knew my time was coming to an end. Black spots were beginning to fill my vision and everything seemed to be swaying. I could feel my body growing weaker as the wound on my head allowed more and more blood to fall freely. I took out two more aliens that seemed to be shooting at something on a roof. As blackness closed in, I could almost swear it looked like a man with a bow and arrow.

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          The dark was so vast it seemed to consume my entire being. There was no escape, I could feel myself slipping as if I were nothing more than a small pebble in a ravenous river. I was being thrown about, jostled until not even I could tell if I was dead or alive. There was no light, there was no time, there was not even a body. Body? What about a body? Maybe I could ask Jamie.

          The darkness morphed, a light slowly worked its way through slithering and shoving. I could see just inside of it was Jamie. His hair was as fiery as ever, his eyes gleaming, and his hand was stretched out to me as it always was. Why would I feel so much sorrow looking at him? Suddenly there was blue. Everything was blue and Jamie was no more. These hazy memories of mine... are they merely a string of nightmares? I couldn't tell if it was just a dream or if it was some twisted reality. Those broken half-remembered memories of mine scared me. I shoved them away roughly fearing what they would bring. I let myself slip into the darkness again, a strange absence filling my soul.