I Can Take You Home (A Romanogers Fanfic) COMPLETED

Steve

It was a weird feeling.

The moment you blinked, the world became a different thing. One moment, he knew what he was doing, the next, everything just blurred together in a big question mark.

He didn't know where he was, or why there was a gun in his hand.

His vision expanded, and he saw Wanda and Thor from across the room. Weird, he was pretty sure he didn't see them here before, it was as if they had teleported here out of nowhere. And he didn't know why Wanda was staring at him in shock and despair, tears running down her cheeks, and Thor was staring down at the floor in front of him. He didn't know why there were so many bodies lying around, and why his ankle was bleeding, and the pain paralysed him once in a while.

He didn't know why there was blood all over his hands.

Was it his, or someone else's?

Then, everything clicked together in his head as he turned his attention to the blood-splattered floor.

Natasha lay in a pool of her own blood, her forehead torn open.

Memories upon memories assaulted his brain endlessly and relentlessly. They came in flashes, and the only thing he could do was to stand there, in pain.

Natasha and him, in the changing room. He remembered trying really hard not to turn around to look at her in all her naked glory. Then she had kissed him, their first kiss, and Steve wished it to never end.

They're dancing, entwined in each other's arms. He could feel her muscles on her arms, and he remembered how beautiful she looked under the romantic light, with her creamy skin and hair bright and red as flames, in contrast to her eyes, cool and green and beguiling.

She was winter, and he was summer.

He remembered watching her pick from the array of flowers in Sam's backyard, and brought them all back to Yelena to braid them into her hair, bouncing in excitement. Yelena's hair had looked like it had tiny pinpricks of colored stars in them from a distance.

He remembered how his back heat up when she pressed against him, and how it felt when her fingers ran through his hair.

He remembered how the sun illuminated the smile on her face when he fit the flower crown he had made for her around her head and told her she looked gorgeous. She was gorgeous.

He remembered how she had wept bitterly when she opened up to him about her past and what she had done. And right then and there, no matter what she had done, Steve could never get scared or angry. Because if Natasha Romanoff cried like that, silently and so bitterly, Steve knew it was real. Her guilt was almost palpable, and that shattered his heart.

He remembered training with her, and how skilled she was, despite being small, she was agile and stealthy. He was beaten in only a few minutes, and she had tousled his hair and kissed him.

Steve crumpled to the floor as the final memory struck him so hard, his heart stopped beating.

Green, tearful eyes, full of pain and love. He didn't understand how both emotions, which were the opposite of each other, could actually make so much sense when together.

Love isn't love without pain.

"You'll always be my home."

But what kind of 'home' would kill?

Steve's heart wasn't beating. He wasn't sure it would ever beat again. But he was still alive, and he didn't want to be.

"What did I do?" Steve could barely feel the pain in his leg past the guilt. His chest hurt, and he was so wrong when he thought that a bullet wound or stab wound hurt the worst.

This was the thing that would end him.

What else could these hands do, Steven?

You loved her, and you killed her.

You're the monster, Rogers. Not her. Not anyone. But you.

Steve buried his face deep into Natasha's neck, and felt the heartbreaking stillness that came with it. There was no pulse in her neck, no movement, her chest wasn't moving, and she was so cold.

It is all because of him.

He took her hand and threaded his fingers through her limped ones. He watched her angelic face, and the slight smile that was frozen on it. He wished, hoped, prayed, did everything he could, but she didn't respond to his words, didn't respond to his touch.

"Come on, Nat. Wake up. Say that you hate me. Hit me till I'm bruised and bleeding. Hell, put a damn bullet through my head, I don't care. Just wake up, please." Steve brushed his fingers across her bloodied cheek. Tears flooded his vision and blurred her face, and he watched them drip onto the blood freckling her face. "I miss you. I love you, so much. I'm so in love with you. Do you hear me, Nat?" His voice cracked. "You've wiped off all the red in your ledger, you can wake up now. I'm so sorry, it's all my fault you can't open your eyes anymore."

He kissed her, and her lips were dry and cold. Not only physically. When she had kissed back with those tender lips of hers, Steve felt warmth spread through him like fire, making his heart run like hell, and fireworks exploded in his stomach. Bubbles were in his chest, and he had never felt this alive.

But she wasn't kissing back this time.

"Steve?"

Steve cradled Natasha's body against him, his arms stained with her blood, and turned around, disbelief hitting him the second time when he met steel blue eyes.

"Buck..."

"I'm so sorry," his friend whispered.

Steve gently lay Natasha down beside Bucky, then flew across the room toward Wanda. He gripped her wrist and shoved it to his chest, where his heart was. Each pulse pained him, because he knew he didn't deserve to be alive but he still was. And because he didn't know how to live with this guilt, this permanent scar in his heart that would never heal. Most of all, he couldn't live without Natasha, his home. She was his home as much as he was hers. And to think he needed to cope with the fact that he was her murderer, he wished death could take him away to hell.

"Kill me, Wanda," he whispered fiercely. The tears would never stop, he thought, they would never stop until he's dead. "Kill me," he said with more vigor as the sorceress trembled under his touch and shook her head.

"I won't. And I can't." Wanda tore her wrist out of his grasp and glared at him. But her voice was soft when she spoke, and her expression turned to sorrow. She began to cry. "You know that I can't."

"Well, why? What's the reason?" Steve whirled toward Thor. "How about you kill me? Just electrocute me with lightning or something."

Thor shook his head firmly. "Stop." He took Steve's shoulders and rattled his friend hard. "For the last time, we are not going to kill you. Everyone's got dead people, but that doesn't give you an excuse to kill yourself. It wasn't your fault, you're not you." He jerked a thumb toward the hooded man on the floor, his neck twisted unnaturally. "It's his."

Steve shoved Thor away from him and watched Wanda stroke Natasha's hair. Natasha was Wanda's mentor in battle training, and both of them had developed an irreplaceable relationship during the past few months they were together.

Steve crouched beside the witch and watched as she smoothed Natasha's hair. He turned his attention to Bucky and helped his friend to sit up. Then, he watched Wanda stitch up the wound on Bucky's stomach.

Thor was heading toward them in slow, heavy steps when a low groan came from the corner of the room.

"You stay." Wanda pushed Steve back down gently when he started to get up, her hand lingering on his shoulder, then went off with Thor to check for the source of that noise.

Yelena.

Steve eased Natasha's head onto his lap and folded his hand over the wound on her forehead. He couldn't bare to see how Yelena would react to the news of her sister's death.

A gasp, then Thor's shocked voice caught Steve's attention.

But what shocked him the most was the name that tumbled out of Thor's mouth.

"Loki?"