Infectious

Chapter 16

He felt odd, not in a good way, but indescribable.

He had been moved to the couch while everyone ate their breakfast, as the tv was turned on, his eyes fluttered closed slowly to take a nap which might end up a long sleep until 5 or 6.

They were all at the table, Natasha watched him closely under his pile of blankets.

Bruce gave up on something and went storming into the lab to get tony. He said something like it wasn't looking good at all, and the truth is, they weren't that close on a cure.

Steve was running out of time quickly and tony was wasting his. He might as well be there for him before... well, before he goes.

It was a good half hour before tony finally came up with him, he was also the first to go sit by steve. Nudging his shoulder a bit in a pour attempt to wake him up. But he remained still.

"Steve? Wake up." He bent down to be almost face-to-face with the sleeping man before he realized how flushed out and pale his face was.

The machine still pumping air into his lungs, which didn't do him much good for when tony checked for a pulse, but didn't find one. "Steve? C'mon man, no." He shook his limp body again and his arm flopped off the side of the couch limply. "Steve!" Tears welled up in his eyes and everyone ran over when he shouted.

He shook his head and ran his hands through his hair as Natasha took her turn to try to wake him, also finding no reaction or pulse. She balled, and she never cries.

He couldn't believe it. Steve was gone-dead- he wasn't coming back, he wasn't going to see him down the hallway tomorrow morning, not hear his daily complaint about tony spending too much time in the lab, he was gone.

---

The funeral was... unfair. Everyone thought that. This, made everyone think back to the reason why he was now being buried 6 feet under the ground. Because he was poisoned, and they couldn't find a cure.

Nobody thought this would be how it happened, not for him. Maybe from a mission gone wrong, even of old age, not from a poison the serum maybe should have fought off.

Much of the crowd cleared from the graveyard for the team to have their time alone with the fallen soldier. Natasha embraced in Clint's arms as she cried silently. Thor standing silently in his black suit, hands behind his back and head tilted down. Bruce, one hand on Natasha's shoulder and also, looking down. But tony, he couldn't stop moving. He wanted to leave. He hated this.