Logs:In overflowing wrath for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you, says the Lord, your Redeemer.

In overflowing wrath for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you, says the Lord, your Redeemer.
Dramatis Personae Leo, Steve
In Absentia Dawson, DJ	2021-12-10 "Let's get a little farther from this fracas and call for a ride, huh?" (Set just after Guardians attack.)
Location <NY> Downtown Albany
Sirens doppler in all directions toward a spot just over a block away now, and Steve steers Leo down a wide alley cutting through the next block. Once in the cover of a dumpster transfers his slumping from Leo to the wall. "I'm alright, I just need a moment." His eyes skip over the other man. "Are you O --" His lips compress. Softer, "Hey. Are you hurt?" Leo has been quiet since they left the scene of destruction behind them. He's steady enough at Steve's side, until the other man slumps against the wall. It's only then that he wobbles, slumps himself, back against the dumpster and sliding down heavily to sit on the slick-wet ground. His face is pale, his eyes still wide-wild, and he just shakes his head at Steve's question. Keeps shaking it, numb and repetitive. He has one end of his kind of gritty-grimy scarf balled up in a trembling fist and he presses this to his mouth in an effort to stifle the harsh sobs that follow. It's hard to say whether Steve is much surprised by this response. He slides down with his back against the wall, too, though in a much more deliberate way, and he stays in crouch, ready if probably not eager to leap back up. "Hey. Leo. I'm here. You're here. We can take a break." He's transparently trying to slow his breathing. Curves an arm around the other man's shoulders and pulls him gently against his un-less-injured side. "That -- that was a lot. You're doing good." Leo's head is still shaking, that same jerky repetitive motion. He starts to sink in against Steve's side but in the next moment pulls sharply away, scrambling slightly back along the side of the dumpster. "No -- don't -- you shouldn't --" His knuckles press to his mouth, and he's struggling to calm his breaths, eyes fixed intently on Steve before he looks down instead to the ground. "They shot you." It still comes out edged, too-high, too-sharp. "Do you need -- they shot you." Steve lets Leo go and holds up both hands, palm-out. "You're not --" He looks down at himself, then back up at Leo, eyes widening slightly. "Right, ah... I don't get sick easy but -- yeah." He swallows, almost manages to hide his wince. "Yeah they -- sure did, in spite of themselves. I know it looks bad --" His eyes widen a lot more. "Oh. Oh, gosh, Leo." He reaches for the other man again, then pulls back. Tries to match his breathing to Leo's. "I'm sorry you had to see that. You did good. You got me out of there. You kept your cool when it counted." Leo twitches when Steve reaches for him, one small flinch as he wraps his arms around his knees, hands now gripping at their opposing elbows. "Not when it counted. Not when it counted. I could've stopped it. I could've --" He swallows, his fingers digging hard against his coat. "Didn't look like anything, with him. I thought we got away fine, and then --" His eyes lift to Steve again, fixing on the other man's more-injured side. Slightly narrowed, slightly suspicious. Steve holds his hands up again, then, as if too tired to keep them up, he props them against his knees to support his weight. "There's nothing you could have done. I wasn't even fighting them, and you tried surrendering yourself -- they attacked anyway." He shakes his head. "Maybe it was just that damned bigot handler of theirs, trying to show off." His breath catches softly. "He -- Dawson, the way he moved. Sometimes he materialized around things flying in the air." He presses fingertips experimentally to his left ribs, and hisses sharply. "I think there's only one bullet actually in me, and it isn't too close to anything I can't live without." He tries and fails to smile. "I know that was frightening. Heck, I was scared, there were so darned many. Frankly it's a miracle how badly programmed these were." "They weren't -- badly programmed." Leo's voice has gone softer. His eyes lower, gaze unfocused now somewhere in front of him. "I was -- trying to stop them. I was stopping them. Not -- very well. I'm sorry." His forefinger and thumb start picking in small twitchy motions at some of the grit stuck into the fabric of his coat. "I'm sorry." Steve looks completely flummoxed. "You were --" His eyes tick up to Leo's head, searching his dark hair. "But how, robots can't --" But then he jolts, suddenly horrified. "My God, they're not alive, are they? Some kind of cyborg?" He runs a grimy hand through his hair. "Bad enough they're pre-programmed to go after you, they seemed to think I'm worth a lot of attention, once they identified me." His brows are furrowing. "Think in this case they were sent for you specifically, though. Just as you're slaving away to ease these outbreaks. How low will these people sink?" "They're always going to hate me. I know when I'm outside the city there's a bigger risk -- And I didn't -- I don't know how. They're not alive." Leo continues plucking at his sleeve even after he's rid that particular patch of its gravel, just worrying now at the fuzz of the coat. "Something DJ said to me the other day. In his world, the other -- other me --" His head shakes. "He thought I should be able to control the robots. When they went after you I -- had to try." There are tears welling back up in his eyes, but his voice is steady, this time. "This whole time, I could have. I could have." "Control robots..." Steve just stares at Leo for a moment. "Well. There's ah, stranger things." Shakes his head as if to clear it. "All of us who do this -- we know there's a risk. He knew that, too. But the lives you save are worth it. You're worth it." He closes his eyes, slows his breathing. "And maybe you could have saved him, if you'd known you could do this...whatever this is. Or maybe not, but you couldn't have even tried then because you didn't know." He tears off a strip from the hem of his flannel to make a rough bandage for his leg, at least. Grimaces as he pulls it tight. "But you saved me, ok? You didn't even know how to do it, and you saved me." When he looks back up he freezes, eyes gone wide. "We can't let them know. Maybe they'll figure it out, but those things are badly programmed..." He starts to run his hand through his hair again, but it'd gotten bloody from tending to his wound and he scrubs it against his jeans irritably. Offers Leo his other, clean(er) hand. "C'mon. Let's get a little farther from this fracas and call for a ride, huh?" There's something startled in Leo's expression as Steve speaks, but whatever it is, he doesn't give it voice. He does nod, slow, his breaths slowly returning to something more like a regular pace. "I'll hold off on calling the media about this just yet, then." He's not altogether steady when he gets to his feet and offers Steve his hand, and the edge of laughter in his voice is just slightly off-kilter. "Right. Yes. A ride. You're coming with me."