everybody knows that the captain lied / panic

[STEVE]

[align=center][div style="max-width: 500px; text-align: justify; font-family: arial; font-size: 9.5pt; line-height: 1.4;letter-spacing:.1px"]Steve didn't have much of a history to haunt him. Kinda hard to know much of the world and the obstacles in its roads from a window or a bed, getting over some illness or another that'd inevitably turn into something else. He knew plenty of that, at least: the frustration of helplessness, of waiting around, of being weak. Hard to try and be something greater than you were when there wasn't much of you in the first place, and it wasn't that he'd had far-fetched aspirations of being some kind of renown hero, dashing and strong. His mother hadn't raised a fool- if he turned out that way, it was his own doing, not hers. He'd always just wanted to help people, though. Maybe it was from seeing his mother wear herself thin treating patients at the little clinic, working long hours to come home and fall asleep in the middle of making herself something to eat.

It was hard to do any less than she did, to refrain from giving back, especially after she'd given him everything. But those weren't the kinds of memories that made him restless or agitated, didn't get him up on his paws at odd hours, pacing, but he knew other people had those. Steve was only up late because he'd napped for a while earlier, and couldn't bring himself to stay asleep, especially not with that assailant out there somewhere. He wasn't much of a first line of defense, but he could yell loud enough.

The first person he saw was, thankfully, not Stryker. It was the guy who'd attacked him, gave Bucky time to get out. He looked like he was about to bust out of his skin. "Hey," Steve started, a bit breathless trying to keep up with longer, faster strides, "never got a chance to say thanks. Don't think I would've been much help to Bucky if you hadn't jumped in."