Re: log, Stark Tower: Becky L/Steve R
[It was a cell, and cells, Steve knew from experience, were never comfortable. Even with the regulation of temperature, not too hot, not too cold, with the bleach softness of sheets tugged tight on bolted-down bed frame, it was a cell, and the unwavering harshness of the light made Steve feel sorry for the woman, as one human to another. He felt sorry for her, too, for being taken in by a man like Crane, and though she appeared complicit to a degree, the cache at the apartment she'd left a tell-all, Steve knew one wasn't born a monster. There were no such things as monsters. There were just men and the terrible things they did to one another.
The plastic of the suit, the little window transparent before the face, fogged up as Steve breathed hard against it, a stitch digging needles into his side as it unscrupulously pulled in thread. Sweat slid down his forehead.
There was no easy way to do this, so he didn't allow himself to linger. He looked at the woman where she sat.] I have some bad news. [He knew she would know, then and there. How could she not? Steve's expression washed with the empathy of intimate loss. But, however much it hurt, she deserved to hear it. The softness of implication wouldn't do here, and he swallowed, pink lips pressed together briefly. His heart went out to her then, as it had gone out to all the mothers told of their boys' deaths on the front steps of their house by a somber man who respectfully removed his hat as they began to sob on him.] Mr. Crane died. I'm sorry.