At first I thought it was my alarm, the incessant incessant rapping. Except I'd fallen asleep on the couch, not in my room, so I shouldn't have been able to hear it from here.

The noise wouldn't stop. My neck cracked cracked from sleeping on it oddly, my nose still full of the dust and fear from yesterday. It hadn't been a dream. I try to stand but every bone in my body is an ache that demands to be felt. Still the pounding intensifies. At this point though, I'm not entirely sure that it isn't just the throbbing in my head manifesting as a physical sound. Until the door is kicked inwards, that is.

"Get on the floor!" A voice screams, angry. It's familiar, but I can't place it. Whoever it is, they can't mean me. It doesn't make sense. "I said, get on the floor!." Somehow the voice's volume increases, making me see spots. Somehow I'm on the floor. Maybe I did what I was told, maybe I fell, maybe the person behind the voice forced me down. I don't know. I don't know anything except the carpet scratching my face and the fuzzy confusion making everything bright and dark and sharp and soft. I don't know anything except for my shaking in terror and yet utter calm.

"What..." I mutter, trying to sit up, trying to understand, trying to see through the fog. It only thickens.

"Stay down kid." A new voice pushes me back to the ground. This time though, I'd have sworn it was Sam Wilson, the Falcon. Except that's impossible, my head pulses harder.

"Please, I don't..." But the words won't come. I'm vaguely aware that I'm being pulled up, roughly. Maybe I struggle, maybe I don't. Everything is strange and surreal and it is impossible that I'm being kidnapped by Captain American, except I'd swear that I am.

New pain explodes/blooms in on my wrists. Handcuffs? Why? Why is Captain America putting handcuffs on me? It has to be a mistake. This isn't real, it can't can be. All I have to do is wake up. Things like this don't happen in real life. Real life is boring and dull and mind numbing. In real life nothing happens.

I can't wake up though, this dream—- no, nightmare, just keeps playing like the reel of an old horror movie, doomed from the beginning, unable to be stopped despite the protagonists best efforts.

"What's-" I try to mutter but my voice isn't working right. Everything's fuzzy, like my brain isn't getting enough oxygen, like it's getting too much.

"Don't struggle." The voice snarls. The voice of Captain America. The voice that's supposed to protect people. But this voice that belongs to this man doesn't belong here in a little apartment in D.C. at this time in the morning.

Part of my brain knows I should be struggling, screaming, fighting back, but I can't. The world is soft around the edges, a camera out of focus. I'm not in my apartment any more and that doesn't upset me as much as it should. A tiny bit of me wonders what the neighbors think, or if mom'll be mad. If she'll even notice.

I wonder if kidnapping is an excused absence. It's not as though I want to be absent, right? They couldn't not let me make up my missed work. If they didn't though....

"I've got to go to school." I finally manage to speak.

"I don't think that's going to be a problem anymore." It's Falcon again, kinder, more forgiving. This isn't how it's supposed to work. Captain America: champion of the weak, the underdog. He is supposed to help people, he isn't supposed to cause pain.

Maybe it isn't really him. Or maybe this isn't really happening. Maybe this is all a dream and I'll wake up and my mom won't be home but maybe there'll be a voicemail from her apologizing for being late and reminding me to do my homework and nothing will have changed at all.

Except there's this pit in the bottom of my gut; a pit of dread. Because this isn't a dream and nothing hasn't changed.

I don't know how, and I certainly don't know why, but this morning everything changed. Nothing is the same and it never will be again. Something has happened and it's steeared my life on a collision course. But no one's bothered to tell me what, exactly, I'm going to collide with.

Maybe I'm not making any sense. Actually, that isn't true—- I'm making no sense at all. But there are so many maybe's that sometimes it's hard to stop thinking in maybe's. Or maybe it isn't. Or maybe I just got hit really hard on the head, which is true.

At some point I got put into a vehicle, but I'm not really sure when. The vehicle moves. Up. Down. Bump bump bump bump bump. Smoooooooth. Left. Or maybe right. Everything hurts so much, everything's so dark and so quick and so loud and so so so much that I can't think because the noise is my head is overpowering and the heaviness in my chest won't go away and I don't understand I don't get it why why why why why. Panicky breaths, brain short circuiting. I need to get it under control. I need to calm down. Not enough oxygen in my brain, not enough air in the car. Not enough air in the whole universe. Every limb on fire and freezing and tingling like they fell asleep. Stomach churning. I need to stop. I need to stop. I need to stop stop stop stop stop stop. But it just hurts too much, there's too much hurt.

Except I did something wrong. Captain America wouldn't be here otherwise. So really, there isn't enough pain in the world for me.

A/N 

Sorry it's been forever