the best of the vanished marvels have gathered inside your door.

[manwithaplan]

For about ten minutes after Steve first rises, everything is normal. He gets out of bed, gets dressed, and heads out for his morning run. When he hits the streets, the realization that all is not well sinks in quickly enough. Even at dawn, the streets of Darrow are never so quiet. It reminds him of when he first arrived in the city, when it was still deserted. And as soon as he makes that connection, it's like he already knows. He spends the next hour hoping that he's wrong. He visits the boardwalk, which even at this early hour would attract a few joggers, but there is no one in sight. No traffic in the streets. The lights are on at the 24-hour gym, but there is no one at the front desk to stop him from going inside without a membership, and the rest of the building is empty as well. He checks one establishment after another, cutting between alleys where trucks would be making their morning deliveries, eventually grows desperate and begins to knock down the doors of private homes. Then he runs, fast as he can, back to Ocean View.

He nearly breaks her door down, but Lucy answers. He stays long enough to reassure himself that she is real, that he hasn't lost her, and to explain as best he can what is happening. Then he has to pull himself away; there are other people to check on. On the way back to his apartment, he starts calling friends. He doesn't care who he wakes up, there are voices that he needs to hear. Finally, he sends a group message — Bruce, Natasha, Sam, and Tony all get a wake-up call to action. He sits on his couch and waits for them to arrive, and hopes that this meeting will go better than the last.

Comments

[thesacrificeplay]

I'm really not one for the summons that Rogers has apparently become so fond of, but I guess this is one that I can't ignore. I've been in the lab since four this morning, and maybe I'm punchy, just a little, but I know that when three of Darrow's most competent zombies disappears in the middle of an experiment that you really can't disappear from (being in an airtight chamber and all), it's probably something that's worth at least a half hour of attention.

The flight over is quick, creepily quiet, and I'm reluctant to hop out of the suit until I'm in Rogers' apartment, parking just inside the front door ("Howdy Cap.") before stepping out of it and immediately heading to the kitchen to survey the beverages available. They're lacking, so I go without.

"Don't these things stop being DEFCON 1 after a while?" I ask, sitting unceremoniously down in an armchair and making myself comfortable. "I, for one, could see a real benefit to some peace and quiet." Tom and Andrew from the basement of Amalgamated will pop back up in a week or two anyway, I'm sure. Maybe it's got me unsettled, but hey. I'm a little unsettled these days anyway.