Imagine If You Assembled the Avengers: Volume 1

Crushed (Steve Rogers x reader)

You could feel the bones in your shoulders pulling and threatening to dislocate from their joints, and the bones of your wrists ready to snap under your own weight. Any shift would pull harder, and you were certain that the excruciating pain under your right shoulder blade was a slow tearing of the muscle fibers that held it in place. The fatigue was beginning to be too much for you and your legs were no longer trustworthy. The more your body sank towards the ground, the harder the restraints would pull and slowly tear you apart.

"I wasn't expecting HYDRA to be run by cowards who can't even take part in their own torture," you gasped, your breathing becoming more labored from the pressure on your chest. "Having me hang myself is pathetic."

"Perhaps if you would cooperate, then we wouldn't have to go to these measures, (Y/N). Are you ready to tell us what we need to know about the Avengers?"

"Are you ready to go to hell?" you groaned, the straps around your wrists tightening more.

The man sighed and crossed his arms; he was obviously frustrated at his lack of progress with you, and began to question if he underestimated you when you were taken. "No, (Y/N), I am not. But I believe that you are."

~~~

"I can't help but feel like we're close," Steve mumbled as he searched the information in front of him; anyone he could think of to contact was involved in the search for you, and Fury had pulled in every resource at his disposal. Despite the risk that they could find out, even Coulson and his team were working day and night to find someone that they had never even met.

"We've felt that before, Captain," Wanda sighed, rubbing her eyes to release the fatigue that stung them. "I have yet to read her at all."

"I know, but I can't give up yet." He stretched his arms out across the table with a yawn, pulling them back and folding them in front of himself to rest his head. "She's expecting me to find her."

"This is personal for you, isn't it? Do you love her?"

Steve's head snapped up at her words, surprised at the turn in the conversation that he certainly wasn't expecting. "Why would you say that? Why would you assume that it's personal? She's a part of the team, and I'm her Captain. This is my job."

"Okay," she nodded, "but I can see there's more, Steve."

He leaned back in the chair with a defeated posture filled with exhaustion and no desire to argue. "I could love her. Very easily. But I don't know how she feels." He nodded slightly and held her gaze, "satisfied?"

"Not until we find her, no."

~~~

"So, tell me, (Y/N), is this less cowardly? Do you feel that my participation is adequate now?" The man pulled on the straps behind you, squeezing the corset around you tighter with each pull to slowly crush you until your body was destroyed. "Is this more to your liking?"

"You're still not looking me in the eye," you said with air that you could barely force out.

"(Y/N), are you going to cooperate?"

"I'm not afraid to die. You chose poorly."

"Yes," he said with a strain in his voice as he pulled again, "I can see that."

This pull was the worst so far; you could feel your ribs cracking and splintering under the pressure. All that it would take to kill you would be a bone fragment in your liver or spleen, and you were guaranteed to bleed to death. At least it would be peaceful; a little pain and then sleep. You were trying so hard to hang on, to wait for your team to find you, but you could only take so much and it was almost time to let go.