Dedicated to shadowhuntingdauntlessdemigod, a faithful reviewer and an irreplaceable source of encouragement to me (this is the piece I was telling you about).
And also for a guest user, who asked for a continuation.

title from Fall Out Boy song 'Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying'

He knows what she thinks. Gravel crunches under his boots as he walks away without turning back because there's nothing there but the shaky remains of humanity's failed defenses. Despite what everyone thinks, he's not an idiot. He knows what it looks like, what he looks like, how he seems. In the corner of the hangar his bike's still there. Half of the universe disappeared but not the machines they made. He knows what Natasha thinks but she's wrong. He's not suicidal.

He's angry.

The night is pleasant. Warm. Cloud cover that plays peek a boo with a glittering moon crescent. Roar and rumble of his bike under him, carrying him across the miles, over the distance far and away. There's nowhere to go. Not really. Here, there. It's all the same. All hollowed out and picked over, scraps of carrion left out for vultures.

When morning breaks with birdsong and fresh air, he's still riding. He's heading west because why not. Points his bike and lets it take him down the ever flowing ribbon of asphalt while the anger simmers and boils like prehistoric tar in his gut. Still west through America, barely meets any cars on the road. Too much fear, too much grief. Not enough people.

He goes it alone and it's familiar. It's New York after his parents funeral. It's waking up from the ice in a future he never meant to be in. It's ripping the star from his chest and fleeing his own country. It's Wakanda with the stench of death thick in his nostrils. It's achingly familiar in a horrible sort of way. It's like coming home to a place he hates.

Big cities attract like the end of a magnet and he follows the draw, follows it deep into the hearts of the concrete jungles where filth spews and multiplies, an infection setting deep into fresh wounds. Half of humanity but the cut is jagged and frayed along the edge, good evil innocent bad no difference.

A miserable drizzle crawls over his leather jacket, sinks down into his collar where the fabric meets skin. He's slouched against brick, the neon from the bodega's windows not quite reaching him here in the shadows. He's waiting, he supposes. Could be waiting. Could be just existing in this world no one saw coming. He slouches, waits, and takes a pull from the bottle in his hand.

Definitely waiting because now the waiting is over. Two men with empty backpacks they're looking to fill. In the aftermath of any disaster there're those who twist the wreckage to their demented advantage. The two don't even have masks, arrogant and brash. He sets down his bottle and rolls his shoulders, the tar pit belching great bubbles that bloom pop stick in his rib cage.

It's not his style but he toys with them. Gives them a chance, many chances, so very many opportunities to hurt him before he hurts them oh so much worse. The shop owner is too scared to offer thanks and he couldn't accept anyway. He picks up his bottle as he leaves, rain trickling over bruised knuckles. It's not far to the site of the next crime. Drains the bottle before he goes, picks them off slowly, easily, all the while that anger burns and burns and burns.

Motel after motel after knife wound and apathy. Like the alcohol, this petty vigilantism doesn't affect him. Can't cool the never ending ever present always there can't forget anger. It's not what it looks like. He's not trying to die. But he doesn't think he would complain too much if it happened anyway.

They're in the headlines. Doing good. Finding ways to somehow do good in the middle of all the terrible. Through Tennessee and on to Texas up to Arizona. They're in the headlines and he sees them on newspapers and tv screens. North Dakota and Michigan after. He sees them and misses-

In a subway car of all places. An old woman recognizes him. Their eyes meet on a subway car. Stations passing outside the window. Her wrinkles and her wispy hair and her failing strength. Next stop in three miles. And he feels the weight of it, her anger anger anger.

Highways and freeways and interstates all blur together, losing flavor like Wrigley's gum chewed too long on a summer afternoon. There's one thing that stays the same though. People. Grief, shock. People. Loss, heartbreak. People, people, people. So many still even now left behind. Broken, shattered, lost people.

At a gas station in Philadelphia, almost the closest he comes to upstate New York these days, a young woman, barely out of her teens. She's at the pump behind his, counting coins and fumbling with numb fingers. Her purse lands in a puddle of dirty slush and he retrieves it for her. Hands it back and startles at the hollowness of her expression, the clumps old mascara have knotted in her eyelashes. Frown lines and worry lines, too many for a face so young.

The coffee is horrible. Looks like a cup of pond water and tastes just as appealing. But it's scalding hot, enough to beat the dead of winter back a little. He buys her one too and invites her to the sticky booth in front of the prepackaged sandwiches. They're not there more than an hour. She talks. He listens. The baby carrier rocks gently on the table beside her as she recounts a tragedy and the struggle for continued life in the face of it. He hands over his jacket and she gratefully spreads it over the baby as a blanket, something inside of him shifting, settling, right. It's not until he's two states over that she will discover the money he planted in the right hand pocket.

After, he sort of gives up on anger. It burns too damn hot for that kind of sustainability. But there's still that awful pit, even if it's not full of tar anymore. Resignation maybe. If he was the sort of person who could. But he's not. He's Steve Rogers from Brooklyn, NY. He doesn't know how to give up. Can't be grief - he hasn't cried in nearly eighty years. Can't be acceptance - that would be disrespectful to all those gone. But maybe. Waste not, want not. He's got this burning something and just maybe he can turn that into something useful.

Time slips, passes, runs full circle. So does he, sometimes. But most days he manages. He focuses and reminds and reaches past the layers of pain to grab a fistful of his core and drag it up and out into the sun. A prepaid bus ticket here. Buying a meal there. Clearing rubble and rebuilding. It gets easier. Feels like slotting jarred pieces back into place.

They're on his mind. His mind is blank. Too many thoughts. Leaking out his fingers onto paper, bleeds away in ink. They're on his mind. He can't go back. Not yet. Still drifting, still haunted by a deep black pit of not quite anger. Soon, maybe.

It starts with parking the bike. Signature on apartment lease. Routine and regulation and same faces. This is how he anchors his mind, his rib cage, his tongue. Digs a hole of coffee shop same faces local park same faces library same faces. The solid press of humanity weighs on him.

He doesn't believe it. Not what he's preaching. But it helps. Helps them and that's what helps him. He's not ready to live like this is the start. Of a new era, new world, new universe. But this-these meetings and talks and mentoring sponsoring praying-this is something he can do.