Errare Humanum Est *Supernatural x Captain America*Steve x Reader*

05) If one should fall... (1/2)

Enormous time skip, because the title is still applicable and somehow... it felt right to connect the chapters like this. Do not murder me...?

Endgame and Infinity War spoilers. You've been warned.

-.-.-

Forever was a funny word. A funny concept, perhaps. People always said they wished for some moments to last forever and what they meant was for them to last as long as possible, with no change in sight. Or they said that something unpleasant felt like it lasted forever, their souls craving an end of the misery, a fundamental change as the polar opposite to the first case.

You knew both in the past years.

Sitting on your ass in a Wakandian palace, watching a battle unfold in front of you, an ensemble of great warriors fighting yet another army from space, that felt like forever, a never-ending nightmare and you only got to watch.

It set a pattern for you for several more years to come. To only watch.

You watched an alien creature steal the sceptre that the Avengers had decided to store in the palace and it did so while killing everything in its way. Princess Shuri had the great idea of hiding you and cuffing you so you wouldn't stand in the creature's path while she tried to stop it with the others. She ended up in shattered glass, only unconscious, as if thanks to a miracle.

You watched as... as she fell apart to ashes only minutes later; just like many, oh so many others.

Half of the population, they said.

Thanos, The Mad Titan, had wiped half of all living creatures.

The moment was carved into your brain forever. And the eternal time you waited for anyone to come back from the battle, to see Steve alive, because God, please, at least let him live – yes, that sure as hell felt like forever.

Lives were lost. Bucky, Sam, Ryan, Wanda, Pietro, Peter, Shuri, T'Challa, Strange, Fury... the list going on and on – gone. Forever.

The world changed. The mission of the Avengers' – who now officially didn't exist and yet recruited new members all over the freakin' space, which was the only way of finding out Tony Stark, who had disappeared on a spaceship, in fact, survived – changed as well. Some took off to start a family, lucky enough to still have a partner to do so. Or to have the ability to pass their genes.

You couldn't. Or maybe Steve couldn't, it didn't matter. You never pried after the source of your inability to have children; you two were one, a unity. You didn't want to know so you could point fingers. You could tell Steve blamed himself, as well as he knew that your irregular period was definitely not helping. You made your peace. In fact, you admired Tony for finding the courage to create an environment for a child in this mad world; your insecurities ironically helped you to come to term with the fact of your body not functioning right.

In a way, it only drew you and Steve closer. You had valued each other before, but now... you truly were like one. You backed him up in how he decided to honour Sam's memory by starting a support group and he was the one to sense that in a search for reassurance, strangely materialistic, you craved an official bond with him, despite never telling a word. You were Steve's wife now – and you were each other's rock, even during the poor attempt at defeating Thanos again.

Five years was a long time, a forever, one might say, but when Scott Lang, one of the people believed to been dusted reappeared, forever and never became relative again.