Swan Song ✧ STEVE ROGERS [✓]

22 - What It Means to Believe

WHILE RAEVANNA WAS TAKEN TO THE HOSPITAL WING TO BE HEALED, FURY GATHERED TONY AND STEVE BACK INTO THE BRIEFING ROOM. Natasha, Agent Hill, and Blake were there as well, the look of numb shock on their devastated faces mirroring Steve and Tony's.

"These were in Phil Coulson's jacket," Fury said after a moment. "Guess he never did get you to sign them." He threw Coulson's Captain America trading cards on the table towards Steve, who picked them up, seeing that they were stained with blood.

"We're dead in the air up here," Fury said. "Our communications, location of the cube, Banner, Thor... I got nothing for you. Lost my one good eye." He chuckled to himself. "Maybe I had that coming." He paused for a beat before he went on. "Yes, we were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract. I never put all my chips on that number though, because I was playing something even riskier." He faced the group. "There was an idea — Stark knows this — called the Avengers Initiative. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people, see if they could become something more. See if they could work together when we needed them to, to fight the battles that we never could. Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea." He paused. "In heroes."

Without a word, Tony got up and stormed off, clearly not wanting to hear any more. Steve let him go, knowing that there was nothing he could do to stop him.

"Well, it's an old-fashioned notion," Fury said, also watching Tony leave.

Steve set the cards down and stood, deciding to go check on Raevanna. He wanted to make sure she was alright, and he knew she needed to know about Coulson. So he left without so much as a word to anybody, heading to the hospital so he could see his girlfriend.

He wandered the hall for a moment until he found her. She was sitting up on the bed, the upper part of her suit pulled down, wincing as one of the medics stitched up the wound in her shoulder. Steve could see the white gauze wrapped around her torso, and he saw dozens of bruises littering her back and shoulders.

"There," the medic said to Raevanna when she had finished. "Now, try to rest, and no moving around too much. You might open your injury up again."

Raevanna nodded, smiling at the medic as she muttered something in a foreign language. The medic nodded back and left, and once she was gone Steve walked up to Raevanna.

"You scared me, you know," Steve said.

"I know," Raevanna said, then added softly, "Iksan vaoreznuni."

Steve frowned. "What did you say?"

Raevanna hunched up her shoulders, looking up at him sheepishly. "My bad. It's Valyrian, it means I'm sorry."

"Valyrian?" Steve repeated. "Valyrian, what is that?"

"My native language," Raevanna said. When Steve cocked his head in confusion, she explained, "Faeries are born speaking Valyrian, it's the language we grow up with. But English is different in the sense that it develops over time, imprinting in our brains without us ever having to open a book and learn it." She looked down. "I honestly don't use Valyrian anymore, but it does slip out when I'm stressed or worried."

"You should be worried. You almost died today." Steve sat beside her. "Why didn't you tell me you were hurt? I could've sent you here instead of having you come along with me and injure yourself further."