![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
It's days like this that Sid wishes he was dead.
A normal, drizzly early morning in inner city Birmingham, and he's out jogging. Five am. No fucker jogs at five am.
Well, no eighty year olds, anyway. He jogs in fatigues. They're only things that feel normal any more, seeing as he can't dress in the usual carpet slippers and cardigan combo that most pensioners favour, but he'd feel a prick trying to dress any younger.
So it's always the same army surplus that he wears when he's out saving the world. He's not a real person any more, just a pair of cargo pants and a t-shirt thanks to that bloody Super Soldier program.
Captain bloody America doesn't have to deal with this sort of thing. He's still the right age, his powers match his body.
That's what Sid hates the most - when he sees the bastard's smiling face on the front cover of the Mail, grinning away like he hasn't got a care in the world, still blond and loved and totally at peace with himself.
Sometimes, when he feels up to it, he'll visit Nancy's grave. Beautiful, caring, dead Nancy. If he ever meets Captain America, he'll bring him here - force him to look at the sort of normal, mundane things that Captain Midlands has to deal with every day.
No-one should ever have to visit the woman they love in a churchyard for forty-five years.
"... I'm sorry, Nancy, love. I haven't been up for a while," The grave is silent and cold, as he expects. He talks anyway, just in case. "I've been, eh, busy, you know?" He clears away the wilted flowers - only he brings flowers - and smooths the dirt back across.
Sid settles down with his back pressed against the stone in front of hers, staring at the engraved name that's all he has left.
Nancy Ridley - beloved wife of Sid.
In God's arms.
What a load of bollocks, she shouldn't be in anyone's arms but his. It's not right. Nobody bloody mentioned this when he signed up for the Super Soldier Program. Sid doesn't see your loved ones getting a tumour the size of a bloody grapefruit and leaving you old and alone forever written in the small print.
"I miss you, you know. I mean... Even though it's been... S-So long, I still miss you, Nance," He can feel his voice breaking a little, so he waits until it's steady enough to go on before he says anything else. "But this... This isn't living. I'm eighty one years old, Nancy. I don't want to keep being a hero. I want them to let me die." This time, he presses the heels of his hands into his eye sockets until the stinging feeling in his eyes subsides.
Nancy doesn't reply. There isn't even some kind of 'sign', for him to be comforted by. He's just an old man, sat in a graveyard, talking to a lump of rock in the pissing rain. And, Sid thinks, that is what being a super soldier is all about.
A normal, drizzly early morning in inner city Birmingham, and he's out jogging. Five am. No fucker jogs at five am.
Well, no eighty year olds, anyway. He jogs in fatigues. They're only things that feel normal any more, seeing as he can't dress in the usual carpet slippers and cardigan combo that most pensioners favour, but he'd feel a prick trying to dress any younger.
So it's always the same army surplus that he wears when he's out saving the world. He's not a real person any more, just a pair of cargo pants and a t-shirt thanks to that bloody Super Soldier program.
Captain bloody America doesn't have to deal with this sort of thing. He's still the right age, his powers match his body.
That's what Sid hates the most - when he sees the bastard's smiling face on the front cover of the Mail, grinning away like he hasn't got a care in the world, still blond and loved and totally at peace with himself.
Sometimes, when he feels up to it, he'll visit Nancy's grave. Beautiful, caring, dead Nancy. If he ever meets Captain America, he'll bring him here - force him to look at the sort of normal, mundane things that Captain Midlands has to deal with every day.
No-one should ever have to visit the woman they love in a churchyard for forty-five years.
"... I'm sorry, Nancy, love. I haven't been up for a while," The grave is silent and cold, as he expects. He talks anyway, just in case. "I've been, eh, busy, you know?" He clears away the wilted flowers - only he brings flowers - and smooths the dirt back across.
Sid settles down with his back pressed against the stone in front of hers, staring at the engraved name that's all he has left.
Nancy Ridley - beloved wife of Sid.
In God's arms.
What a load of bollocks, she shouldn't be in anyone's arms but his. It's not right. Nobody bloody mentioned this when he signed up for the Super Soldier Program. Sid doesn't see your loved ones getting a tumour the size of a bloody grapefruit and leaving you old and alone forever written in the small print.
"I miss you, you know. I mean... Even though it's been... S-So long, I still miss you, Nance," He can feel his voice breaking a little, so he waits until it's steady enough to go on before he says anything else. "But this... This isn't living. I'm eighty one years old, Nancy. I don't want to keep being a hero. I want them to let me die." This time, he presses the heels of his hands into his eye sockets until the stinging feeling in his eyes subsides.
Nancy doesn't reply. There isn't even some kind of 'sign', for him to be comforted by. He's just an old man, sat in a graveyard, talking to a lump of rock in the pissing rain. And, Sid thinks, that is what being a super soldier is all about.