In Your Eyes // Steve Rogers

Avengers Assemble

There was no time to even attempt to save anyone. One missile hit, I lunged for Kona and cradled her in my arms. Another hit, I met Steve's panicked eye, and then dozens more fired rapidly, one after the other, and I lost complete sight of the others.

The ceiling collapsed, the floor fell through, I tightened my grip on Kona, and we fell through the floors together. When we hit roughly into a patch of mud, the Earth underneath the Compound, I lost grip of her and we bounced away from each other. I was quick to gain my bearings and throw my body on top of her, just as the Compound came crashing down on us.

On my hands and knees above her, the remnants of my home fell on my back. My durability, my unbreakable skin caught thousands of pounds of rubble from hurting her. She had not moved an inch as it all fell. She whimpered, cowering underneath me, and I started to hear her gasping for breath. I projected a bubble around us and trapped some air for her to survive for the upcoming minutes. I didn't need air to breathe, but I had almost forgotten she did.

When the shifting rubble came to a silence, the little cove underneath I had created for us was entirely and utterly black with darkness. I lit up my hands, illuminating them green to shed some light. I had absolutely no clue where I could create a portal to; the Compound was beyond destroyed. I had no idea what the land and its surroundings even looked like anymore. But Kona would die down here, with no oxygen, if I didn't move quickly.

Adapting back to a life with my powers was just like riding a bike. I slipped into the ease of portals and the conjuring of energy fast, it was discerning how to use them in a beneficial way that I had been rusty on. I couldn't portal or punch my way out of this one, I thought, until I truly thought about the possibility.

I had learned years ago to channel the green energy in a way that it could burn. I usually settled on my singularly lighting up my hands, because I had never tried or found it necessary to release the power through my entire body. But I felt it. I could feel the quaking energy flowing through the inside of my body, every inch of it, and I released the mental blockage holding it back. I saw green; my eyes had turned to glow green. I dipped my head quickly to see the rest of my body, illuminated entirely with green energy, and I heard sizzling rocks on top of my back.

I enclosed the safety bubble around Kona and I to just protect her from my burning skin. I grabbed her dead weight close to my body with one arm. She was losing oxygen, quickly, and had started to become drowsy.

I clenched my shoulders back to extend the burning to the rocks above me, I threw myself back to kneel, and put one hand above my head to catch the shifting rubble. I closed my eyes, I prayed this would work, I started to burn through the rubble with my hand, and I jumped. The rocks burned underneath my hand, the rubble collided with my head and shattered, and my body burned a tube far enough to shimmy Kona and I up through the rubble as I went.

We shot through the rubble in no time. The momentum I had gathered sent us soaring into the air, then fell quickly, and I shot out my hands to break our fall. On my back, I let Kona's body roll off of me and sat up. I smiled down at her as she started to blinked her eyes open, letting in air to her lungs and beginning to reenergize.

With Kona regaining her strength, I looked around and noticed we were sitting on top of the mound that had previously been our home. I turned my head and I saw a massive helix shaped ship was hovering in the air, accompanied by smaller ships underneath it, and a ground army to accompany him.

And on the opposing side, one man. My love. My idiot, my noble idiot, standing in almost certain death against the face of a crusader that could never win, so long as one man stood in resistance.

I whipped my head back to Kona. She was sitting politely now, her mouth closed, and her eyes hard as she stared at the army beside me. I put my head to hers and hugged her to my body for a quick, loving moment.