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jebbypaltitle: Pushing America
author: jebbypal
rating: teen
synopsis: Cassie sees the helicarriers and Captain America fall. She also sees that what comes after will be worse if Captain America doesn't survive
author notes: First off -- please do the opposite of my icon. The start of this has been languishing on my iPad for several years. And my muse decided the perfect place to wake up for once was in a metal can miles above the earth on a five hour flight forcing me to continue on with this story by thumb typing.
Caution -- all of this is draft. I may go back and rewrite the lot of it. But I made words!!! About fandom for the first time in like 5 years. So I'm posting. YMMV.
Also, apologies if I make mistakes in html as again, it's been a while.
fandom notes: Compliant only with CA:TWS. I probably don't need to put in any background on that fandom. PUSH was an early Chris Evans film with Dakota Fanning in which there are a group of people with psychic and telekinetic abilities. An organization known as The Division seeks to capture and use the talents of these people. The types of abilities shown in the movie are behind the cut Movers - telekinetics; Watchers - psychics; Sniffers - those who can get the scent of a person off their belongings and then track them; Pushers - people who can put thoughts into the minds of their targets to the extent of even rewriting what they know about themselves; Bleeders - people who can create sonic waves capable of breaking glass and bodies; Shifters - can alter the appearance of objects such as turn playing cards into money for a short amount of time; Wipers - can erase memories; Shadows - can block the abilities of Sniffs and Watchers; Stitchers - healers
Disclaimer: these worlds aren't mine. Also, I in no way endorse underage drinking. Rather it's canon that Cassie uses alcohol to get clearer visions of the future.
Their responses to the public outing of superheroes differed greatly. Nick found it annoying that there was a group of extra-abled (and sometimes norms) people that had immunity from Division.
Cassie thought that there might be a moment in the future that they could use the Avengers and their ilk as allies, but even she was wary of their association with SHIELD. Too much risk of Division infiltration or worse, Division-like motivations. Regardless of her fears, she told Nick it was a good thing -- the more the public got used to the fact that people with extraordinary abilities could do good, then the closer they were to the day they could all come out.
After the event of New York, she sometimes had visions of them - Iron Man, Captain America, Thor. Sometimes she thought that maybe they would be the only people she'd never see dead.
And then SHIELD imploded spectacularly. Cassie could be excused for not noticing the warning signs - first they were hightailing it out of Burma (which is not a place one can exit quickly as thousands or more refugees can attest) with Division sniffs on their heels; second, Cassie's unique upbringing meant she had no context for what the Hydra symbol in her visions meant. Third, Nick thought her drawings of said symbols were bleeding calimari.
But the news of the helicarriers falling out of the sky changed everything.
Nick had argued, long and hard. If there were going to be 3 flaming ships falling from the sky, then the last place they should be going was the area directly underneath. Threats of the rope and the duct tape variety had been made, but in the end, he'd gone along. Her visions said they had to save Captain America, or bad things would happen.
Or so she'd told Nick. Cassie doesn't like lying to him. Before they met, it had been a long time since they each had someone they could trust. And after, well, given the number of pushers, sniffers, and Division goons chasing after them, and never quite knowing which side of things that Kira fell on each time they ran into her again, trust didn't come easy.
The thing is though, Cassie's terrified that her lie is right. The flashes she seen of Hydra have made Division look like an adolescent bully. And what if Hydra knows what Division knows? What if Division is, well, a division of Hydra.
Regardless, it's Captain America. She doubts even his ability to survive the beating she's forseen and the inevitable fall from the sky. They don't have a chance in hell at stopping the former - at least not without more abilities than she can put together in the 72 hours they have before things kick off. And she's not willing to give Hydra that many abilities if things go horribly wrong (and they do at least in 5 of the scenarios she's seen). One mover and one psychic though, that's an acceptable gamble.
During a number of firefights they have no hope of influencing, she decides that the museums are as good a way as any to burn time. Nick humors her, probably because she woke up from an alcohol-induced blackout screaming at 4 in the morning and they could both use something other than 4 bland storage unit walls to stare at. (Nick had drawn the line at her suggestion of camping the entire time prior to when they were needed. Given DC mugginess that almost puts Malaysia to shame, she's grateful for small favors).
They take turns closing their eyes and randomly picking a destination off the tourist map she'd pickpocketed on the subway. And exhibits are chosen by randomly following different tourists at each stop. That one of their destinations is the Smithsonian is down to chance -- Especially since Nick picked it on his turn. Ending up at the Captain America exhibit, not so much. She'd followed the babble of excited school boys since it was her turn to blindly choose their marks.
Nick is less than amused.
Cassie is frozen in front of Bucky Barnes's memorial.
"Come on, we need to get you some food." She ignores the insistent pull on her arm - falling, cold, ice. Surgery with enough gas to keep him docile but not enough to stop the pain. And more pain, then cold seeping into every
"Cassie, stop it now," Nick growls in her ear at the same time that she feels him push at her enough to keep her upright.
"Do you folks need some help?" An old voice asks.
"No, sir, thanks. I think she skipped breakfast, is all."
"Bring her over here, I keep some items handy just in case. Sometimes folks get a little too caught up."
Hands are pushing her forward and then gently pressing down. Cassie just follows along still caught up in the after effects of the vision. Habit makes her hands twitch in need of her sketch book, but she's seen nothing she wants to memorialize.
A straw forces it's way between her lips and she sips at it instinctively. She pulls away from the shock and confusion by focusing on the puzzle. It's long been her defense mechanism aided by the fact that her visions are generally one big logic puzzle in 4 dimensions with the added variable of constant change. But this...."I see the future."
Nick's face comes into focus and his look of horror causes a giggle to escape. "You need to see about 3 to 4 squares a day, miss. Don't believe what the movie industry would have you believe -- no guy wants to cuddle up to a stick at night."
She swivels her head and focuses on the new voice. Saggy skin and grey hair attest to his age. The fact that he's not been involved in any of her visions - past or future - calms her somewhat. "Sorry, my brother and I have been having a movie quote off all day." The uniformed guard nods his head as if that's the most common thing in the world. "I guess I was too excited that we were coming here and forgot breakfast, Nate," she gently presses her foot against Nick's sneaker so he remembers their cover names. "I just mean, this is all so different from hearing about history in school. There it's all boring and seems like a story someone made up."
The old man nods. "It can seem that way if you don't know anyone who went through it. Even if your folks served in one of the later ones, well, war has changed a lot since back then."
"Were you?" Nick asks, but the old man just laughs at him.
"Oh no, son. I'll agree that I'm old, but I'm not ancient," the last is said with just a bit of defensiveness. "My uncle though, well he did."
Another flash of the past comes to Cassie then. This had better be short lived quirk of her gift and only happening because all her visions of death involve a 90-year-old man that was frozen at the bottom of the ocean. "He was in the Howling Commandos," she states, enough surprise coloring her tone to be mistaken for a question.
"Aye kiddo, he was." The diminutive stings - she's sixteen, finally, well almost. She's not a kid anymore. If she ever was given the things she's grown up seeing and running from. "Like most of them, he didn't talk about it much, but every VE day -- that victory day for the European part of the war, mind you -- he'd pull out his kit and march. He'd tell us a bit about it on those days, or rather would talk with the rest of them when they visited and I'd eavesdrop," he confesses.
"We'd love to hear about it, sir, but I'd better get her down to the cafeteria for lunch." The old man nods and gives her a hand when she stands.
She turns to wave good-bye even as she remains lost in the memories of her vision of the past. Bucky Barnes reminded her of something. In her gut, she knows it was important.
They'd been in one place too long and so their removal to the campsite was not wholly unexpected. The hope being that one forested area looked enough like another to confuse any watchers on their tales. Then again, Cassie had a feeling that the watchers were probably distracted by the same world-ending visions that she was. Worse, it kept changing even though she and Nick weren't doing anything. One minute the airships never take off, another minute, all she could draw was fire and graves. There's not much they can do but wait and hope they were in place for one of the least awful potential futures that she foresaw.
The fire show in the sky guides them in the general direction until Cassie starts to recognize enough landmarks to refine their path. It says something about their mood that neither of them make Biblical jokes about their navigation methods.
And then they wait - Nick on pins and needles, Cassie taking swigs of tequila. In the future, she'd like to put in a request that every world-ending disaster occur within easy view of a clock synchronized to GMT.
The ground shakes once with the distant impact of the first helicarrier, then again harder as the second goes down closer to their position. But the third remains stubbornly in the air despite it's damage, slowly sliding over their position until - "There!" Cassie shouts directing Nick's attention to the pile of iron, glass and flesh falling towards the river.
He acts quickly to pull, and then push the flesh in the center away and then to slow the impact when Cassie falls to her knees in pain Nick's neck twisted, her body riddled with holes and the Captain
"Cass!"
Reflexes hard earned from too many close escapes and the few times that Nick decided they should train has Cassie tackling him into the river before he can even finish. In the distance she hears another splash caused by her interruption of Nick's concentration. Hopefully Nick had softened the impact enough, otherwise....
"Behind us, keep him off and I'll get Captain America." She pushes Nick to the shore before he can protest and swims in the direction of the earlier splashdown. Silently she hopes she can stay afloat if the future changes again.
During her spotty and eclectic education, someone once told Cassie that water reduces the weight of objects and people. Struggling to coordinate the long limbs and bulk of Captain America wearing tactical gear, Cassie seriously doubts that information.
Once she’s gone downstream enough with his body that she’s stopped hearing falling trees, explosions or other similar Nick-powered damage — be all right, be all right, be safe, be quiet — she finally starts the struggle involved in dragging the almost dead weight of Captain Eats Too Many Wheaties up the river bank. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to be anywhere near their camp.
Which is probably a blessing in disguise. It wouldn’t be the first time that Division used altruism against her.
Still, this leaves her lost in the middle of a forest with a lightly shivering fuckton of super soldier and no mover to help shoulder the load. Well, Nick always did say she was annoying enough to wake the dead. Time to put it to practice because there’s no other way to move this Mountain today Mohammad.
“Wakey wakey!” She sing songs in her most annoying pitch, while slapping the face of an American icon with more and more force. “Come on, Old Man, I am not drunk enough to know exactly how long of a grace period we have going for us here. Shake a leg, get the lead out, stop imitating driftwood”.
Eventually the man in question moved the slightest amount away from her, but his eyes remain closed. Frustrated she bangs her fists on his chest and is rewarded with a deep, choking cough air too thick, too damp, should have thought through that running retreat. Bucky’s fist pounds Steve's back And now his eyes are open and hands all but encircling her shoulders.
“Whoah, calm down man. You had a bit of a fall, but for the moment everything is good.”
Military boots stomp in and out of muddy ground, moving inexorably forward, target in sight, hands move to throat comm to signal
The ground next to them breaks apart and suddenly Cassie finds herself close to the chest she had been hitting as thy are launched across the clearing.
“Fuck,” is the only thing she can think as they the ground next to a downed tree.
“What -“ she somehow managed to slap a hand over his mouth as she tries to push out the cold and adrenaline and capture the threads of the actual future - “Don’t ask me how but there are men there”- she points “and there”, point to another position that would have hem being captured in a pronged attack “and they aren’t friendly.”
Waking up in the 21st century seems to have made the man trusting, that or there’s another secret super power from the serum, because Captain America just nods even though it doesn’t take Cassie reading the future to know that he will be pursuing her knowledge later.
He struggles to his feet, and then pushes her forward. “Then run.”
She grabs his hand, “Don’t be stupid, you are coming with me.” Somehow she has enough momentum to pull him up and they start moving in the direction that feels clear.
She hopes Nick is all right.
To be continued
author: jebbypal
rating: teen
synopsis: Cassie sees the helicarriers and Captain America fall. She also sees that what comes after will be worse if Captain America doesn't survive
author notes: First off -- please do the opposite of my icon. The start of this has been languishing on my iPad for several years. And my muse decided the perfect place to wake up for once was in a metal can miles above the earth on a five hour flight forcing me to continue on with this story by thumb typing.
Caution -- all of this is draft. I may go back and rewrite the lot of it. But I made words!!! About fandom for the first time in like 5 years. So I'm posting. YMMV.
Also, apologies if I make mistakes in html as again, it's been a while.
fandom notes: Compliant only with CA:TWS. I probably don't need to put in any background on that fandom. PUSH was an early Chris Evans film with Dakota Fanning in which there are a group of people with psychic and telekinetic abilities. An organization known as The Division seeks to capture and use the talents of these people. The types of abilities shown in the movie are behind the cut Movers - telekinetics; Watchers - psychics; Sniffers - those who can get the scent of a person off their belongings and then track them; Pushers - people who can put thoughts into the minds of their targets to the extent of even rewriting what they know about themselves; Bleeders - people who can create sonic waves capable of breaking glass and bodies; Shifters - can alter the appearance of objects such as turn playing cards into money for a short amount of time; Wipers - can erase memories; Shadows - can block the abilities of Sniffs and Watchers; Stitchers - healers
Disclaimer: these worlds aren't mine. Also, I in no way endorse underage drinking. Rather it's canon that Cassie uses alcohol to get clearer visions of the future.
Their responses to the public outing of superheroes differed greatly. Nick found it annoying that there was a group of extra-abled (and sometimes norms) people that had immunity from Division.
Cassie thought that there might be a moment in the future that they could use the Avengers and their ilk as allies, but even she was wary of their association with SHIELD. Too much risk of Division infiltration or worse, Division-like motivations. Regardless of her fears, she told Nick it was a good thing -- the more the public got used to the fact that people with extraordinary abilities could do good, then the closer they were to the day they could all come out.
After the event of New York, she sometimes had visions of them - Iron Man, Captain America, Thor. Sometimes she thought that maybe they would be the only people she'd never see dead.
And then SHIELD imploded spectacularly. Cassie could be excused for not noticing the warning signs - first they were hightailing it out of Burma (which is not a place one can exit quickly as thousands or more refugees can attest) with Division sniffs on their heels; second, Cassie's unique upbringing meant she had no context for what the Hydra symbol in her visions meant. Third, Nick thought her drawings of said symbols were bleeding calimari.
But the news of the helicarriers falling out of the sky changed everything.
Nick had argued, long and hard. If there were going to be 3 flaming ships falling from the sky, then the last place they should be going was the area directly underneath. Threats of the rope and the duct tape variety had been made, but in the end, he'd gone along. Her visions said they had to save Captain America, or bad things would happen.
Or so she'd told Nick. Cassie doesn't like lying to him. Before they met, it had been a long time since they each had someone they could trust. And after, well, given the number of pushers, sniffers, and Division goons chasing after them, and never quite knowing which side of things that Kira fell on each time they ran into her again, trust didn't come easy.
The thing is though, Cassie's terrified that her lie is right. The flashes she seen of Hydra have made Division look like an adolescent bully. And what if Hydra knows what Division knows? What if Division is, well, a division of Hydra.
Regardless, it's Captain America. She doubts even his ability to survive the beating she's forseen and the inevitable fall from the sky. They don't have a chance in hell at stopping the former - at least not without more abilities than she can put together in the 72 hours they have before things kick off. And she's not willing to give Hydra that many abilities if things go horribly wrong (and they do at least in 5 of the scenarios she's seen). One mover and one psychic though, that's an acceptable gamble.
During a number of firefights they have no hope of influencing, she decides that the museums are as good a way as any to burn time. Nick humors her, probably because she woke up from an alcohol-induced blackout screaming at 4 in the morning and they could both use something other than 4 bland storage unit walls to stare at. (Nick had drawn the line at her suggestion of camping the entire time prior to when they were needed. Given DC mugginess that almost puts Malaysia to shame, she's grateful for small favors).
They take turns closing their eyes and randomly picking a destination off the tourist map she'd pickpocketed on the subway. And exhibits are chosen by randomly following different tourists at each stop. That one of their destinations is the Smithsonian is down to chance -- Especially since Nick picked it on his turn. Ending up at the Captain America exhibit, not so much. She'd followed the babble of excited school boys since it was her turn to blindly choose their marks.
Nick is less than amused.
Cassie is frozen in front of Bucky Barnes's memorial.
"Come on, we need to get you some food." She ignores the insistent pull on her arm - falling, cold, ice. Surgery with enough gas to keep him docile but not enough to stop the pain. And more pain, then cold seeping into every
"Cassie, stop it now," Nick growls in her ear at the same time that she feels him push at her enough to keep her upright.
"Do you folks need some help?" An old voice asks.
"No, sir, thanks. I think she skipped breakfast, is all."
"Bring her over here, I keep some items handy just in case. Sometimes folks get a little too caught up."
Hands are pushing her forward and then gently pressing down. Cassie just follows along still caught up in the after effects of the vision. Habit makes her hands twitch in need of her sketch book, but she's seen nothing she wants to memorialize.
A straw forces it's way between her lips and she sips at it instinctively. She pulls away from the shock and confusion by focusing on the puzzle. It's long been her defense mechanism aided by the fact that her visions are generally one big logic puzzle in 4 dimensions with the added variable of constant change. But this...."I see the future."
Nick's face comes into focus and his look of horror causes a giggle to escape. "You need to see about 3 to 4 squares a day, miss. Don't believe what the movie industry would have you believe -- no guy wants to cuddle up to a stick at night."
She swivels her head and focuses on the new voice. Saggy skin and grey hair attest to his age. The fact that he's not been involved in any of her visions - past or future - calms her somewhat. "Sorry, my brother and I have been having a movie quote off all day." The uniformed guard nods his head as if that's the most common thing in the world. "I guess I was too excited that we were coming here and forgot breakfast, Nate," she gently presses her foot against Nick's sneaker so he remembers their cover names. "I just mean, this is all so different from hearing about history in school. There it's all boring and seems like a story someone made up."
The old man nods. "It can seem that way if you don't know anyone who went through it. Even if your folks served in one of the later ones, well, war has changed a lot since back then."
"Were you?" Nick asks, but the old man just laughs at him.
"Oh no, son. I'll agree that I'm old, but I'm not ancient," the last is said with just a bit of defensiveness. "My uncle though, well he did."
Another flash of the past comes to Cassie then. This had better be short lived quirk of her gift and only happening because all her visions of death involve a 90-year-old man that was frozen at the bottom of the ocean. "He was in the Howling Commandos," she states, enough surprise coloring her tone to be mistaken for a question.
"Aye kiddo, he was." The diminutive stings - she's sixteen, finally, well almost. She's not a kid anymore. If she ever was given the things she's grown up seeing and running from. "Like most of them, he didn't talk about it much, but every VE day -- that victory day for the European part of the war, mind you -- he'd pull out his kit and march. He'd tell us a bit about it on those days, or rather would talk with the rest of them when they visited and I'd eavesdrop," he confesses.
"We'd love to hear about it, sir, but I'd better get her down to the cafeteria for lunch." The old man nods and gives her a hand when she stands.
She turns to wave good-bye even as she remains lost in the memories of her vision of the past. Bucky Barnes reminded her of something. In her gut, she knows it was important.
They'd been in one place too long and so their removal to the campsite was not wholly unexpected. The hope being that one forested area looked enough like another to confuse any watchers on their tales. Then again, Cassie had a feeling that the watchers were probably distracted by the same world-ending visions that she was. Worse, it kept changing even though she and Nick weren't doing anything. One minute the airships never take off, another minute, all she could draw was fire and graves. There's not much they can do but wait and hope they were in place for one of the least awful potential futures that she foresaw.
The fire show in the sky guides them in the general direction until Cassie starts to recognize enough landmarks to refine their path. It says something about their mood that neither of them make Biblical jokes about their navigation methods.
And then they wait - Nick on pins and needles, Cassie taking swigs of tequila. In the future, she'd like to put in a request that every world-ending disaster occur within easy view of a clock synchronized to GMT.
The ground shakes once with the distant impact of the first helicarrier, then again harder as the second goes down closer to their position. But the third remains stubbornly in the air despite it's damage, slowly sliding over their position until - "There!" Cassie shouts directing Nick's attention to the pile of iron, glass and flesh falling towards the river.
He acts quickly to pull, and then push the flesh in the center away and then to slow the impact when Cassie falls to her knees in pain Nick's neck twisted, her body riddled with holes and the Captain
"Cass!"
Reflexes hard earned from too many close escapes and the few times that Nick decided they should train has Cassie tackling him into the river before he can even finish. In the distance she hears another splash caused by her interruption of Nick's concentration. Hopefully Nick had softened the impact enough, otherwise....
"Behind us, keep him off and I'll get Captain America." She pushes Nick to the shore before he can protest and swims in the direction of the earlier splashdown. Silently she hopes she can stay afloat if the future changes again.
During her spotty and eclectic education, someone once told Cassie that water reduces the weight of objects and people. Struggling to coordinate the long limbs and bulk of Captain America wearing tactical gear, Cassie seriously doubts that information.
Once she’s gone downstream enough with his body that she’s stopped hearing falling trees, explosions or other similar Nick-powered damage — be all right, be all right, be safe, be quiet — she finally starts the struggle involved in dragging the almost dead weight of Captain Eats Too Many Wheaties up the river bank. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to be anywhere near their camp.
Which is probably a blessing in disguise. It wouldn’t be the first time that Division used altruism against her.
Still, this leaves her lost in the middle of a forest with a lightly shivering fuckton of super soldier and no mover to help shoulder the load. Well, Nick always did say she was annoying enough to wake the dead. Time to put it to practice because there’s no other way to move this Mountain today Mohammad.
“Wakey wakey!” She sing songs in her most annoying pitch, while slapping the face of an American icon with more and more force. “Come on, Old Man, I am not drunk enough to know exactly how long of a grace period we have going for us here. Shake a leg, get the lead out, stop imitating driftwood”.
Eventually the man in question moved the slightest amount away from her, but his eyes remain closed. Frustrated she bangs her fists on his chest and is rewarded with a deep, choking cough air too thick, too damp, should have thought through that running retreat. Bucky’s fist pounds Steve's back And now his eyes are open and hands all but encircling her shoulders.
“Whoah, calm down man. You had a bit of a fall, but for the moment everything is good.”
Military boots stomp in and out of muddy ground, moving inexorably forward, target in sight, hands move to throat comm to signal
The ground next to them breaks apart and suddenly Cassie finds herself close to the chest she had been hitting as thy are launched across the clearing.
“Fuck,” is the only thing she can think as they the ground next to a downed tree.
“What -“ she somehow managed to slap a hand over his mouth as she tries to push out the cold and adrenaline and capture the threads of the actual future - “Don’t ask me how but there are men there”- she points “and there”, point to another position that would have hem being captured in a pronged attack “and they aren’t friendly.”
Waking up in the 21st century seems to have made the man trusting, that or there’s another secret super power from the serum, because Captain America just nods even though it doesn’t take Cassie reading the future to know that he will be pursuing her knowledge later.
He struggles to his feet, and then pushes her forward. “Then run.”
She grabs his hand, “Don’t be stupid, you are coming with me.” Somehow she has enough momentum to pull him up and they start moving in the direction that feels clear.
She hopes Nick is all right.
To be continued