I wake in a small room,on a small bed,with stiff white and blue sheets and a thin grey throw blanket over my body.
My head hurts nad enough that it creates a wall of haze in front of my eyes,making it hard to see.
This is not S.H.I.E.L.D, that is for sure.
I kick the covers away from my body and walk to the window at the farthest wall away from the bed and pull back the tan curtains.
There are rolling hills in the distance,dotted with trees and bushes. The ground in cluttered with dead leaves from the tall oak just outside the window,in which taps it's long branches on the glass.
I am in someone's house.
I eye the posters on the wall.
Black Sabbath,ACDC,Aerosmith,Micheal Jackson.
Most of them are in my notebook.I've heard lots of their music.
But Clint and Tony have reccomended them to me. And Tony is all about fashion and style.
This does not fit his personality at all.
It must be Clint.
I trudge lazliy into the hall where the sounds enter my ears. Low conversations coming from downstairs.
Tony,Clint and Thor all gather around a sleeping Natasha."What happened?" I ask,breaking the group up.
"She's doing much better. Not walking but standing."
"What?"
"You don't remember ,Cap?" Clint asks.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"Steve,Man,they blew up the tower. Bruce is- Bruce is gone."
"Stop playing these stupid games. What's going on? What happened to , Natasha? Why can't she walk? Where the hell is Bruce-"
"Woah,woah there Big Guy, calm down. It's ok-"
"It's not ok,Clint. He doesn't remember anything." Tony says.
"Stop playing these damn games! What happened!"
"They shot the tower down. Noone knows who or what or how. Bruce- We didn't have time-to-to get him."
"Stop! Stop it! What happened,"I slam Clint against the wall and Thor moves toward me but Clint tells him to stay back."What happened to them?"
"Steve look."
I turn to the TV watching the screen as the destruction of the tower shows.
There is nothing but rubble,the A that once symbolized our home,lay broken among the rubble."No," I whisper.
"You've been out for five days,Steve. Something's up with your head,Man-"
"Don't you ever tell me there is something wrong with me. Ever."
Clint looks startled,but he loses the face so fast I doubt I ever saw it."Steve you aren't thinking straight. Just calm down,"
"I don't remember any of this happening. Not ,Natasha, or Bruce or..."
And slowly it begins to come back. Tony taking Natasha down to the street,and me falling down to Bruce's floor.
I'd told Thor and Clint that we had to leave.
Clint was worried about Bruce.
The cieling collapsed and Bruce was burried.
Somehow we'd managed to get outside and we loaded into one of Tony's cars and came here.
Everything else is a blur."Bruce..."
Clint looks away from me."He's gone,Steve."
"And ,Natasha."
"She's doin' much better than when we left. She asked for you a lot before she was put down. She asked for you this time,but she was in a lot of pain so we had to double the dosage. She's been out maybe an hour now."
"What about Leviathan,"
"S.H.I.E.L.D's out there. We're wanted fugitves. I brought us out here to stay safe. As long as Coulson gives the government a good distraction,we'll be alright. Long enough for her to get better. Then we'll strike. Peggy is going to-"
I'd forgotten about Peggy.
"Peggy?"
"She's helpeing S.H.I.E.L.D."
"I don't-"
"Doesn't matter. All that matters is the fact that she'll be here in a couple days."
"For what?"
"Keep things quiet. Make sure Nat's alright. Take care of buisness ,Rogers. We can never be Avengers again."
"Yeah,we can. I won't let that man strip me of everything I've got,do you understand. All we have left is eachother. And we are Avengers. We should never let some man take that from us."
"The Captain is right," Thor chimes."While Natasha lay ill,we must fight the battles she cannot. The battles that need to be fought. And when she is well,we will fight with her. We will bring this Leviathan to his knees. Make him pay for what he stole from us."
"For what?" Tony says."My life's work,lost in a matter of seconds. Suit after suit after suit, burried under rubble with one of our own. What is there left. Natasha can't walk,Bruce is gone,the tower has been reduced to nothing,Steve can barely remember his name. What are we fighting for? What's left?"
"The people. They need us-"
"Do we need them? Do they come running when we need help? You know I'm about damn tired saving their lives,just to risk losing mine every single day. Look around you. Look at what we've lost. Look at who is suffering for them to be ok. To make sure they get to mess up everything. Well you know what,Steve,I am sick and tired of cleaning up after them every time they make a damn mess. It's not my job to make sure they're ok anymore. It's their own."
"And your giving up that easy?"
"I'm not giving up,I'm giving in. I lost my best friend just the other day,Steve,do you know what that feels like?"
"Yes. I do."
He looks at the ground,defeated."I'm done. You do what you guys want to do. But I am sick and tired of being thrown around like we're being. They don't deserve my help anymore. Maybe Loki was right. Mortals are foolish and destroy everything they touch."
"My brother is a lunatic ,obsessed with power. Nothing that comes from that mouth if his is right."
"Do you beleive that,Thor?"
"Yes."
The thing is,I think differntly than Thor.
Maybe this is just useless. Saving the world when we are only going to destroy it ourselves.
Maybe this is how this ends for us.
My beautiful Natasha has been knocked over like a chess piece. Bruce killed in that tower that once stood as a beacon of hope. That once stood for something,gone.
Gone.
"I'm taking a walk," I say."I am going far,far away, and when I come back,maybe we can figure this out. Maybe there is a way out-"
"There is no way out of this ,Steve. Everything we stood for is gone."
"I don't believe that," I pull the hood over my head." I don't."
