12.17.2013 • open
Re: [x]Shit. Shit. Shit shit shit.
Everything had gone wrong in seconds. One moment he was entertaining guests, some of the older ones insisting on telling him what good people his parents were and what a shame it was that they had passed away (a speech he’d been hearing every year for twenty years on this very date), the next his ears were ringing and the stage was on fire.
Fuck.
Once the ringing subsided, he could hear the screams. The panic settled into the room quickly. The announcer had been on stage when it exploded, his body lay in a awkward agle against a wall. There was blood. Oh lord.
The people closest to the stage at the time of the explosion (was it a bomb? he suspected it was a bomb) had gotten hit with debris, some were quite injured. Most were still in a rush to get out, to leave. Shouts of ‘call an ambulance’ or ‘get the NYFD here’ reached his ears but he paid little attention.
Goddammit, why had he left the goddamn Iron Man suit upstairs?
He shrugged off his jacket, tossing it aside carelessly and took to attending whomever needed help. The event’s security team was handling the crowd to the best of their abilities, but there was no medical team on standby, and there was only so much he could do.
Tony was still tending to a woman who’d gotten hit by debris, kneeling next to her when a figure approached him. He barely looked up to check who it was before waving at them to go.
“I got this— just go, get out!”
Steve had been looking at the stage when the explosion happened. If nothing else, it gave him a fraction of a second to prepare for what was to come.
Far enough away that he took no damage from the blast, Steve was moving as soon as he could. It was reflex, automatic, jumping into action to help quell the chaos. Helping up fallen people, shouting directions on the most effective evacuation plans, Steve was always prepared for an emergency.
It was a couple of minutes of autopilot before the panic struck him, the key factor that should’ve been obvious. If something like this were to happen at an event in memory of Howard and Maria Stark, there was no question who the target of the attack would be.
Tony.
Steve could feel his heartbeat shudder at the realization, all but knocking the wind out of him. He’d only left him for a moment, why had he stepped away? He should’ve been there, should’ve been beside him, now where was he?
Completely panicked, Steve’s first instinct was to move closer to the blast zone, scanning the frantic crowd for signs of him. Seeing him, working to help and unharmed, was a bigger relief than he could imagine.
Automatically dropping to his knees beside the woman, Steve disregarded Tony’s instructions to leave. “I can get her out, you keep moving!” he called in response, over the thundering chaos.
