white flag, steve rogers

chapter twenty-seven
027. broken vase

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    WHEN THEY MADE it back home, everyone was tense and exhausted. This wasn't the first time Pamela Daniels had faced a mission that didn't go as planned. She had been the centre of disaster▬a disaster that led to her team getting massacred where they stood. She knew exactly what it felt like▬the weight of responsibility, of a duty of care, of having people's trust placed in you, and watching that trust fail because there was something happened that you couldn't predict. Pamela couldn't predict HYDRA's involvement in S.H.I.E.L.D., which led her and her team to find the Winter Soldier, like lambs led to slaughter▬trying to pick apart the best of them to see who would be their next wolf in the herd. But that backfired on them in the end, too, because the wolf they chose was not someone who would heel so easily. 

    Pamela knew what Wanda was feeling right now. The blame, the distraught, the grief. Failure was part of life. No matter their powers and the job they had, they were still all remarkably human▬even those of them who weren't. And humans make mistakes. But when they made mistakes in their line of work, people got hurt and blamed because they were held to a higher standard than the rest of the world. They were expected to save them all. And when they didn't, the rest of the world no longer saw them in the rose-tinted colour light. People loved to see a hero fail▬they waited and waited until they could catch them at their lowest and tell everyone else 'See, they are just like me!', but when they did see that hero fail in the end, they never treated them with the same kindness and forgiveness as they would anyone else. That was the weight they carried and they had to push through to keep saving others without their forgiveness because that was their job. They saved everyone for all those they couldn't save. But that never changed how it felt to have that guilt tear you apart. 

    Pamela also knew how Steve must feel▬she knew how he was taking on most of the blame, shouldering it because he felt like he had to, that with all his super strength he could. He wanted to take that pain away from Wanda▬every hit and every blow because he was a leader. Their mistakes were his mistakes. Their pain was his pain. Perhaps he felt as if he could have prevented it▬like he should have done something, so Wanda never should have been placed in that position. They all did. They all wished they could get to him sooner before Rumlow could set off the detonation▬because as a team, the truth was, not one of them let someone bear that pain alone. They all took it on together and helped each other get through it▬together. Steve taught Pamela that lesson well. 

    As soon as they returned to the Compound, they were met with press and a billion flashing cameras and questions. Pamela had immediately stepped in close to Wanda, trying to shield her from the harmful words, the questions and the demanding camera lenses. The good thing about the Avengers Facility is that the press could only get in so far▬they were blocked a good few kilometres away from the entrance, and as soon as they swarmed, they were pulled back by security drones and agents▬sent off before they got even a single chance to get more than an initial reaction out of them. 

    And then they were free to step inside the Compound▬leaving the Quinjet and making it into the safety of the place Pamela had called home for the past year. Since it first opened, the Avengers Facility has only grown. The centre facility stood towering at multiple floors with sleek, white, contemporary insulated walls and tall double-glazed, bullet-proof windows. Pamela always glanced up to stare back at the gigantic, red 'A' plastered across the side of the top few floors▬the living quarters where they all stayed if they were on call (and most of them were).