“ i’m not afraid of death, I think it’ll be peaceful. ”
“ roman found the winter soldier program notes. maybe dad’s serum can’t be replicated but who knows how many adjacent formula’s were varying degrees of successful, you know ? anyone of these journals could overtake the lab–– i trust bruce but he’s not going to be testing for years–– how is that not a waste of time ? it could be too l... ” she culled the word on her tongue, eyes meeting the polished concrete with a keen avoidant interest.
“ late ? ” he offered, devastatingly casual. she winced, blink and you might miss it but she recoiled from the sudden grief permeating the air the way she never had a punch. “ it’s not a bad word, you can say it. ” nate dropped onto the ottoman, flippant even in the way he seated himself. sarah thought it had been funny to joke that she loved nathan double to make up for the shallow bond she shared with james, only it hadn’t made her laugh. it stung in the way all jokes did when you knew on some level, there were at least shades of truth at the stem. it was lost on no one that sarah had taken not just to nate, but to charlie too with a warmth she never reserved for james. she couldn’t resolve that, there were times she found herself moving towards him, ready to truly heal the years but the schism between them always stood too deep and too wide. some bridges can’t be mended, and loving nate with the excess room in her heart made her feel like a better sister than perhaps she deserved the credit of being.
“ yes; late, ” she agreed reluctantly, it did you no favours to deny reality with nate, he’d drag you back from the clouds without hesitation. deny the reality of his situation at your own optimistic peril, he knew he was sick. what he didn’t know, what none of them knew, was what happened when his body was unable to fight the serum if it wouldn’t bind with his dna ? the most common consensus was death, something nate had accepted long before sarah had even considered it. she missed the days of naivety. she missed thinking all it would take to protect him was if she put her body between his and whoever came through the door. his birth had brought peace to her family, when steve and grace had poked their heads ‘round her door to see james under one arm and nate under the other, cartoon playing quietly on the ipad because she had let them break bedtime to creep to her room, they’d known everything would be okay for a little while. when nate went from bad to worse, that while had come to an end.
“ i’m not afraid of death, I think it’ll be peaceful. ” she leveled him with a glare. that rogers spirit i can do this all day glare, that i’d cure the impossible just to prove you wrong glare. she had a lead. the mutant exposure labs that nora had come from; they’d made their own refined soldier serum, a mutation of the banner attempt. it’s what they’d used to form daniela’s abilities. all the blood tests in the world would never work as well as the notes and formula breakdowns, if she could locate their new operation site they would have a whole new batch they could begin dissecting.
“ they lucked into dad’s formula. you have some of the brightest minds in human history working to save you; you’re not going anywhere nate. so you better get used to it. ” her tone left little room for discussion as she clutched the photocopies closer to her chest. “ and you’re a rogers, we don’t go peacefully. ”
