First Flame. ~Book One~

Chapter Seven: Gone.

In the coming months, the Howling Commandos were able to easily and successfully take out the HYDRA bases, with both Red and Bucky keeping each other, Steve and the rest of the team alive. Red can be seen flying through the air as she gets an aerial shot of each of the bases. And she flew back to the Commandos to tell then what she saw. 
When the Commandos raided the bases, Bucky kept her covered, they were able to kill the HYDRA inside with a mix of bullets and flame. When they left the bases, they left them burning in ruins.
Most of their efforts were documented and filmed then sent back to the SSR with everyone watching, including Colonel Philips and Peggy Carter, noticing that Steve kept her picture inside of his compass. 
At night, Bucky and Red shared a sleeping bag to keep each other warm and give one another company, having whispered conversation until they fell asleep.
+++
This was the second to last job, soon he and Red would have a shot at the normal life that they'd always wanted. Bucky could almost see it now, they'd have two kids, raise them in the house in Brooklyn, live out the rest of their lives without having to worry about what might be lurking around the corner, and all they had to do was stay alive.
That morning, Bucky had watched as Red fidgeted with her uniform and smoothed it down, before she sighed and repeated the action. She was wearing a deep and dark red version of his own uniform, and there was no way to keep it smooth for long, especially with the way she as painstakingly messing with it. 
With a sigh, he got to his feet and wrapped his arm around her waist, holding her protectively against his chest as he rested his chin on her shoulder. "You okay?" He asked, his voice soft as he spoke. "You seem... shaken." 
"Yeah, I'm... just having mixed feelings." 
"What do you mean?" 
She sighed before she spoke slowly, seemingly being worried that her thoughts would run too far ahead of her and ruin what she was wanting to say. "On one hand, I'm really excited because we're about to be done... on the other, I'm worried because excitement often leads to disappointment." 
"You're worried that this won't end the way we planned?" 
"Isn't the usual plan to hope for the best and plan for the worst?" 
"And what would be the worst in this case?" He knew the answer before he even asked. It was his fear too. Losing her, or losing Steve.
"Losing you." Red said as she turned in his arms and looked up at him with pleading eyes. "Please..." She whispered as tears swam in her eyes. "Please stay alive." 
And it broke his heart because there was no way he could promise that. You couldn't promise that everything would be okay when the odds were stacked against you, but if he didn't make that promise, she'd be so worried about keeping him safe that she'd get herself killed. 
Finally, he sighed and leaned down to kiss her forehead. "Okay, I'll stay alive for you." And more importantly, he'd make sure that she'll stay alive for both of them. 
+++
They all stood atop a snow capped mountain as they waited to zipline onto an oncoming train. There was the hope that Zola was there, and getting a hold of Zola would mean that they'd be one step closer to getting their hands on Schmidt. 
Red stood net to Bucky and Steve as they watched the train tracks below. "Remember when I made you ride the cyclone at Coney Island?" Bucky asked Steve. 
"Yeah, and I threw up?" 
"This isn't pay back, is it?" 
Steve smiled as he turned to look at his friend. "Now why would I do that?" 
Red pulled her hood down and brushed her hair out of her face. "This should be fun." She was more than trying to convince herself that it would be fun than anyone else. "One more after this, then job's done." 
Behind them, Gabe, who had been scanning over HYDRA's dispatch line that he, Falsworth and Dum Dum had been able to hack into, spoke up. "We were right, Doctor Zola's on the train. HYDRA dispatch gave him permission to open the throttle. Wherever he's going, they must need him bad." 
"Let's get going because they're moving like the Devil." Falsworth said. 
"We only got a two second window." Steve explained as Gabe joined them on the edge of the cliff. "We miss that window, we're bugs on a windshield." 
"Mm." She muttered with a grimace. "Sounds messy." 
Bucky chuckled as he kissed her temple and pulled her against his side. "For both us and them." 
"Mind the gap." Falswoth said he handed Red, Bucky, Steve and Gbe a zipline handle. 
"Better get moving bugs!" Dum Dum yelled moments before they finally went down. 
Going down the zipline was almost as fast as she was able to fly and, as she and her companions landed on the train, she wondered if she would have been able to fly onto the train without getting herself killed. 
As they boarded the train, she summoned her staff and followed behind Bucky, with her hand on the strap of his back as if she was afraid of getting lost. Steve was leading the way through the train, and as they were getting ready to pass between one car and the next, the doors between them closed. Leaving Steve on one side, and the other three on the other. 
"Shit!" Red yelled as she ducked out of the way and barely avoided getting shot at. In the chaos, Bucky pulled her into a corner and kept her covered with Gabe by his side. She raised her head over the shipping containers and sent a fireball at the gunmen. Bucky pulled her back down and out of the way right as they shot at the place her head used to be.
"You be careful." He said as he looked down at her, and she thought this was the first time she'd ever seen him look terrified. 
"I could say the same to you." She wanted nothing more than to reach out and caress his cheek, tell him that it would all be okay, but the moment was lost when the door was blown open and Steve finally rejoined them. 
Taking the opportunity of Steve's sudden appearance giving a good distraction, Gabe pushed one of the many shopping containers onto the gunman and knocked him out. 
"We had 'em in the ropes." Bucky said as he reached behind him and grasped Red's hand, as if making sure that she was still with him.
"I know you did." Steve said, almost sounding convincing in his lie. 
Red, on the other hand, who was looking between them and the next car over, said. "We really didn't." 
In the next few seconds, several things happened all at once. Another HYDRA gunman-one wearing a suit that made it look like they had cannons for arms-entered the car and fired a glowing blue ball of energy at Steve, throwing hi to the side and causing him to drop his shield. As they turned to face her and Bucky, he pushed her out of the way and toward Gabe, who kept her covered as Bucky picked up Steve's shield and used it to keep himself covered as another ball of energy flew into it and bounced off, causing it to hit the wall and it blew a hole into the train. 
And he was thrown out. 
"No!" Her shriek sounded foreign to her, she'd never heard herself make such a noise before in her life. In a bit of blind rage, her staff suddenly reappeared back into her hand and motes of fire left both it and her hand, effectively reducing the gunman into ashes in seconds. 
Together, she and Steve rushed to the opening and saw that Bucky was just barely hanging onto the broken train door. "Bucky!" Steve yelled as he started to climb over to him. "Hang on! Grab my hand." 
As she started to fly out to get him herself, Gabe reached behind her and pulled her away from the edge, keeping her from saving him. And she could still hear everything that was happening. Everything went suddenly still as she heard the handle break and she heard him yelling as he fell. She felt the world fall away from her and all she could hear was the sound of her own scream echoing hauntingly in her own ears. Nothing else mattered to her as she fought against Gabe's grip around her waist that was the only thing keeping her from meeting the same painful death that her world had met. 
She was barely aware of Steve coming back into the train car and taking her from Gabe, but even he didn't let her go.  Even as her fire poured out of her hands and exploded around them and everything inside of her was ripping and clawing it's way out of her, Steve never once let her go.
None of it mattered to her anymore, the mission at hand, the war they still faced. The world wasn't there for her anymore because he was gone. 
Bucky, her James, her world, was gone, dead. And there was nothing she could do about it.
+++
After the Commandos arrested Zola and came back to the base with one man missing, Philips brought him a tray of food. It was supposed to be an act of good faith, a way to get the doctor to spill what he knew about Schmidt and the rest of HYDRA. 
"Sit down." Philips said as the door closed behind him and he set the tray of food down on the table. 
Zola did what he was told without giving any resistance as he sat down and looked down at the food. "What is it?" 
"Steak." 
"What's in it?" 
"Cow." Philips threw a file down on the table next to the tray as he sat down himself. "Doctor, do you realize how difficult it is to get a hold of a prime cut like that out here?" 
"I don't eat meat." 
"Why not?" 
"It disagrees with me." 
"How about cyanide? Does that give you the rumbly tummy too? Every HYDRA agent we've tried to take alive has crushed a little pill before we can stop him, but not you." As he spoke, he pulled the tray of food closer to him. "So, here's my brilliant theory." He slowly started to cut into the steak and took bites of it. "You wanna live." 
Zola stayed quiet for a few seconds before he leaned forward and looked into Philips' eyes. If the Colonel was uncomfortable with how close the doctor was to him, he didn't show it. "You're trying to intimidate me, Colonel." 
"I brought you dinner." Philips said as he passed Zola a piece of paper.
With a sigh, Zola took it and read it out loud. "Given the variable information he had provided and in exchange for his cooperation, Doctor Zola is being remanded to Switzerland." 
"I sent that message to Washington this morning." Philips explained as he continued to cut into and eat the steak. "Of course, it was encoded. You guys haven't broken those codes, have you? That would be awkward." 
"Schmidt will know that this is a lie." 
"He's gonna kill you anyway, Doc. You're a liability. You know more about Schmidt than anyone." Philips set down his form and leaned back in his seat. "And the last guy you cost us was, not only Captain Rogers closest friend, but the fiancé of a God. So I wouldn't count on the very best of protection. There's you, or Schmidt, it's just the hand you've been dealt." 
"Schmidt believes he walked in the footsteps of the Gods." 
"Mmm." 
"Only the world will satisfy him." 
"You do realize that's nuts, don't you?" 
"But the sanity of the plan is of no consequence." 
"And why is that?" 
"Because he can do it." 
"What is his target?" 
"His target is... everywhere." 
+++
It seemed like so long ago that he had recruited everyone for the Howling Commandos, and now, it was just Steve and Red, sitting at the destroyed bar as they drank. He slowly sipped at a shot of whiskey as he felt like a deer caught in a set of headlights.
Red and Bucky had been engaged, and instead of it being a happy occasion, with them telling him at the after party when their part in the war was over. It was while they were both mourning his death. 
And Red, whose face was red and puffy as if she hadn't stopped crying since they got back to England, cleared her throat. "Steve, I'm sorry that you had to find out like this." 
"You guys wanted it to be a surprise." And just when he thought that it couldn't get any worse, he was hit with another truck. "It's not your fault." 
Red wiped at her nose with her sleeve before she threw back the rest of her shot of whiskey. "Y-yeah." She cleared her throat as her voice cracked. "We thought it would be nice if you found out after the last base, th-that it would be a nice surprise and give us even more reason to celebrate." 
"I'm sorry for your loss, Red." He said as he reached across the table to hold her hand. 
Red gave a small, sad smile as she weakly gripped his hand in return. "Thank you... I'm sorry for your loss, Steve." 
And then, they sat in silence as they held onto one another in the ruined bar. The only noise around them was the sound of cars driving down the street outside and the faint sound of the radio buzzing in the corner of the room. 

Blackout is still in effect throughout the London Area. Please wait for the all-clear. Your attention please. All citizens shall remain in doors until further notice. Blackout is still in effect throughout the London Area.

It was almost funny that it was expected for the two of them to stay in her house, when they both knew that they were likely the most dangerous things in this city. As he poured them another drink, he saw a movement at the corner of his eyes and quickly turned to see who, or what, it was, thinking that maybe it was more trouble coming for them.
But it was only Peggy. And she looked almost as solemn as they did. 
Peggy carefully set a hand on Red's shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze before she started speaking, and her words were just as careful and gentle. 
"We were able to recover his tags, Red." She said as she slowly reached down and pressed a small, cloth bag into Red's hands. "I didn't know that he had one of yours with him." 
"We... we uh..." She trailed off as her voice cracked again and she reached up, with shaking hands, to wipe more tears away from her cheeks. "We thought-j-just in case s-something..." She trailed off as she cleared her throat. "Something happened." 
It was like Steve was watching her live in her own personal Hell, braving the flames of whatever was running through her head. A man on fire, screaming silently for some sort of relief.
"I am so.. so sorry, Red." Peggy said as she reached up and hesitated for a moment, her hand hovering over the top of her head before she finally caressed the side of her head. 
Red sniffled as she held the bag close to her chest. "Thank you." She let out a shaky breath before she gulped down the rest of her drink and got to her feet. "I'll leave you two to talk, I'll be at the house if you need me." 
As Red left, Peggy took her seat and looked at Steve from across the table, but stayed silent. Steve took a deep breath and looked down at his glass as he began to speak. "Doctor Erskine said that... the serum wouldn't just affect my muscles, it would affect my cells." He sighed as he leaned back against his seat. "Create a protective system of regeneration, which mean... I can't get drunk. Did you know that?" He just wanted to talk about something that wasn't Bucky, even if it was for a few moments. 
"Your metabolism burns four times faster than the average person. He thought it would be one of the side effects." Peggy hesitated for a moment before she started speaking again. "It wasn't your fault." 
"Did you read the report?" 
"Yes." 
"Did you see Red's face?" 
"Yes." 
"Then you would know that that's not true." 
"You did everything you could," Peggy argued. "Did you believe in your friend? Did you respect him?" 
"Yes, of course I did." 
"Then stop blaming yourself. Allow Barnes the dignity of his choice. He damn well must have thought that you two were worth it." 
But dealing with this grief would be easier if Steve had someone to blame. Sitting there, in silence, with nothing but his thoughts to keep some sort of sound in his mind, he realized that there was at least one person to blame for all of this. 
The Red Skull, Johann Schmidt. 
"I'm goin' after Schmidt. I'm not gonna stop till all of HYDRA is dead or captured." 
"You won't be alone." 
+++
Red sat in her room, sniffling as she looked down at the ring that linked them, in another one of the many ways they were already connected humanly possible, that linked them together for the las couple months, marked the start of her path to humanity. It was gone, because he was gone.
"James." She whispered as yet more tears began to fall down her cheeks. She wondered how she even had tears left to cry, she felt like she had been crying ever since they got back to the city. 
Red forced herself to her feet and went to the kitchen to make herself some tea. As the kettle was set on the stove to boil, and she reached up to grab a mug, there was a knock at her front door. 
For a fleeting moment, she hoped that maybe, just maybe, it was Bucky. In the few seconds it took for her to get from the kitchen to the door, she had already convinced herself that he had managed to survive the fall and was standing just outside, waiting for her to let him in. 
It was a silly think to hope for. 
It was even sillier when her stomach dropped with disappointment when she opened the door and saw that it was Gabe Jones, still sporting the burn marks her motes of grief had caused. 
Gabe took off his hat as he looked up at her from the bottom step of her borrowed townhouse. "Forgive me for interrupting your night, Ma'am." 
"It-" her voice cracked as she began to speak. She sighed as she cleared her throat. "It's quite alright. Is there something wrong?" But what she was really asking was if someone else had died.
"In a sense." He said with a sigh. "Philips got Zola to talk, even got him to write down from stuff for you to look at when we get back to the base." 
"Of course, give me one moment." She stepped back into the house, turned off the kettle and went back into her room.
Red took a deep breath as she picked up a jacket and shrugged it on. She paused in the door for a moment before she picked up his tags and hung them around her neck, next to her own. He'd be her shield while she finished this up.
Before she knew it, she was sitting beside Steve with a file resting in front of her. As she read it, the rest of the table came up with a plan to take care of the rest of HYDRA. For good. 
"Johann Schmidt belongs in a bug house." Philips was saying. "He thinks he's a God." 
"I'd hate to be the one who breaks the truth to him." Red said as she silently swore that she'd kill him before she let him walk amongst her and hers.
"I thought you'd say that." Philips said, almost smiling as he looked across the table and at her. "But he's willing to blow up half off the world to prove it, starting with the USA." 
"Schmidt's working with powers beyond our capabilities." Howard, who was sitting on Red's other side, said. "He gets across the Atlantic, he will wipe out the entire eastern seaboard in an hour." 
Red pushed the file away from her and leaned forward in her seat as she cleared her throat and raised her head as she spoke. "With the information I got from the chat with Zola, I can safely and confidently confirm that the Red Skull is working with a very old, very powerful artifact called the Tesseract." 
"What the Hell is that?" Gabe asked. 
"The Tesseract is believed to hold one of the six Infinity Stones, but overall, it's an artifact from Asgard." Red finally leaned back in her seat as she continued to speak. "My step-father had it hidden here, on Earth, before it was taken by Schmidt. I was sent here to retrieve it two years ago." 
"I thought Asgard was just a story." Gabe said, clearly baffled and looking awestruck. 
Red slowly shook her head. "I can assure you that it's not just a story. Everything you've ever read, every story you've heard of the Nine Realms and the Gods that roam them, it's all real. As real as you and me." 
"This is a harsh way to learn that lesson." 
"This world is full of harsh lessons." 
"Never actually thought I'd see that bit of history come back around." Philips said as he too, leaned back in his seat. But Red said nothing in reply, deciding it was better to let someone else speak on the matter. 
"How much time do we have?" Gabe asked. 
"According to my new best friend, just under twenty-four hours." Philips said. 
Jagues spoke up next. "Where is he now?" 
"HYDRA's last base is here." Philips explained as he pointed at a photo of snow capped mountains. "In the Alps, five hundred feet below the surface." 
"So, what are we supposed to do?" Jim asked. "I mean, it's not like we can just knock on the front door." 
"Why not?" Steve asked, speaking up for the first time since the meeting started as he raised his head. "That's exactly what we're gonna do." 
Philips nearly smiled at that before he put his poker face back on. "North, I'd like for you to try and get your hands on the Tesseract. Stay with Rogers until we are able to come in." 
"Yes, sir." Red said as she and Steve got to their feet and they left the room to get ready to go. Later, when morning had already broken over the horizon, she and Steve got geared up to finish their last mission. He was in his Captain America suit, she was in the uniform she was given when she'd joined the Commandos. She leaned her head against one of the tent posts as she held Bucky's tags in one of her hands, looking at them as before she sighed and tucked them into her shirt and zipped up her jacket.
"Hey," Steve said as he set a hand on her shoulder. "We're going to be able to do this." 
"I know." She said as she tried, and failed, to smile. "One last fight, right?" 
"Yeah." He agreed with a nod. "One last fight." 
Soon, too soon most, she and Steve rode through an Alpine Forest on a pair of motorbikes to get to the last HYDRA base, and they quickly gained their attention. Red ducked down and below the handlebars to avoid getting shot at as Steve pressed a button on his and a wire shot out then attached itself to two of the surrounding trees. Realizing it far too late, two of the HYDRA soldiers chasing after them got caught up in the wire and were flung off of their vehicles. 
Red threw a hand back and sent out a raging jet of fire at the remaining of two, and as they screamed, they crashed and met a quick end. She quickly got behind Steve as a tank rolled up to meet them head on, they swerved and were able to easily dodge death as it fired blue beams of death at them. 
As he drove up the side of the entrance to the base, Red flew off of the motorbike and let it drive itself into the tank, which thankfully blew up. The moment she landed back on the ground, Steve sent his bike into the doors, its explosion causing a massive hole to open up. 
And then, as she flung her hand out to summon her staff to her hand, they fought together. It was nearly seamless, he ducked and weaved to avoid her flame, she caught his shield and threw it at the surrounding soldiers when he couldn't get a good angle. Their fight, however well they were doing, was cut short within seconds when they were cornered by flamethrower wielding HYDRA soldiers. 
The plan was to get captured in order to get eyes on both Schmidt and the Tesseract, but still, she cursed inwardly that, while she had been made of fire, and was able to wield it as a weapon, she couldn't control a flame that was outside of her body.
Her staff turned back into a ring around her finger as they were captured and brought, as they assume they would be while they were planning, right to Schmidt. He had decided to stop pretending that he was remotely human, and decided to show the world what the serum had done to him all those years ago. She had only seen his true face in photos that had been taken of him, Red was never prepared to see him in person. 
It disgusted her, so much so that she had stopped fighting against the man that was trying to hold her still. 
"Arrogance might not be a uniquely American trait." He was saying as he looked across the room at her and Steve. "But I must say, you two do it better than anyone." 
Red raised her head as she leveled her gaze with his and set her jaw, trying to look taller as she squared her shoulders back. "Big words coming from a man to thinks himself a God." 
Schmidt tilted his head at her. "And you don't?" 
She couldn't help the proud smirk that spread across her face, one that Thor would have been proud of. Idly, in the back of her mind, she hoped that Heimdall had gotten him to watch this part of her exile to Midgard. She wanted to make her big brother proud.
"I'm from Asgard, Honey." Red said as her smirked turned into a grin. "I think I'm a God, I know I am." 
She was even more smug as she watched him piece this together, the stories he's about about Muspelheim, how some stories depicted it being a person, how others said it was a plane of existence that resided in the Nine Realms, the reality was that it was both. And all of those stories that he had obsessed with for his whole life, combined with the mission reports he'd read over the last couple months, solidified itself for him. 
"Muspelheim." He finally whispered. 
She said nothing in reply as she kept her smug grin plastered to her face. She wanted him to know that, at the end of this, he would lose and her team would win. There was no getting around it now, especially when he realized what he was in the presence of.
"But there are limits to what you can do." Schmidt said, still trying to convince himself that he can still pull it off. "Or did Erskine tell you two otherwise?" 
"He told us that you were insane." Steve said. 
"Which isn't that much of a stretch." Red said with a shrug. "You look pretty fucking bonkers from where I'm standing." To shut her up, the guard holding her aimed a punch to her stomach. She groaned in pain and coughed, and decided it was time to stay quiet. She couldn't get herself too hurt when they were so close to ending this.
"And he resented my genius and tried to deny what was rightfully mine." Schmidt said, causing Red to roll her eyes. Was his whole reason behind starting HYDRA to get back at Erskine? "But he gave you everything." He said to Steve. "What makes you so special?" 
"Nothing." Steve said with a shrug as he glanced at Red from the corner of his eye. "I'm just a kid from Brooklyn." 
As if that was her cue, Red suddenly jerked in her guar's arms and opened her hands, engulfing the guards holding them in flames. Together, they fight the remaining guard-the one that had been smart enough to stand back and away from them before they finally turned to face Schmidt. 
As Red flew forward to try, and fail, to set him fire, he caught her by her hair and slammed her, face first, into the desk. She cried out more in shock than she did pain, it wasn't the first time she'd nearly gotten her nose broken, and it wouldn't be the last either. But she does feel it gushing blood as she's thrown aside.
As Steve moved to dart forward to help her up, Schmidt kneed him in the face and, as Steve fell to his knees, Red forced herself back to her feet, her staff appearing in her hand as she yelled a battle cry, she swung back and a loud crack echoed around the room as her staff connected with the back of Schmidt's head. 
As he turned to fight her again, this gave Steve enough time to get back to his feet and put his hands up to fight him with Red again. "We can do this all day." Steve said as they looked at each other and prepared to jump back into action.
"Oh, of course you can. But unfortunately, I am on a tight schedule." Schmidt said as he pulled a pistol and aimed it right at Steve's head. 
Steve now smirked as he titled his head to the side, as if he's daring Schmidt to take the shot. "So are we." Just then, the rest of the team crashed in through the surrounding windows. 
"Rogers!" Falsworth yelled as he tossed Steve his shield. "You might need this." 
"Thanks." He said as he caught it and fitted it to his arm before he turned to face Red. "You okay?" 
"Yeah!" Red called with a grin as she spun her staff in her hand. "I'll be just fine." 
In the chaos, they had lost sight of Schmidt and the two of them ran out of the lab and into the rest of the facility. Red's grin stayed on her face as she fought and reduced HYDRA soldier after soldier to ash. 
It was almost like she was fighting on Asgard again. This part, no matter how strange the technology was, felt familiar.
+++
Feeling sort of stupid for letting Schmidt get away after they literally had him in the ropes, both Red and Steve ran through the facility and after him, only to be cornered by another soldier that was wielding a flamethrower. The moment they were about to jump into action, Peggy came in out of nowhere and shot them, easily being able to kill them for us. 
"You're late." Steve said with a smile, glad to see another familiar face. 
Peggy returned the smile before she gestured down the hallway. "Weren't you guys about to-?" 
"Right!" He and Red yelled as they continued their chase after Schmidt. 
As they continued running down the winding corridors of the facility, they are separated by three HYDRA soldiers that had blocked Red off. Steve hesitated, worried that he'd lose her too, like he lost Bucky. She gave him a smile as she got ready to fight the newest enemy arrivals. 
"Go!" She called across the hallway to him. "I can handle this. Go!" 
And he kept running, trusting that Red really could handle it while he kept up his chase after Schmidt. He entered a hangar just in time o watch Schmidt board a plane, his heart sank as he ran after it, realizing that he wasn't going to be fast enough to catch up.
As if they had heard his silent plea to get onto that plane, Philips and Peggy rolled up next to him in Schmidt's private car. He quickly got in and they raced after the plane. Red, was was not with them, was most likely still helping the rest of the Commandos fight through the facility. Or, at least, that's what he wanted to be happening, it was better than the alternatives his imagination gave him. 
"Keep it steady!" Steve yelled as he stood up and got ready to jump from the car and onto one of the plane's wheels.
"Wait!" Peggy yelled as she pulled him down, and kissed him. It wasn't his first kiss, but right then, it was the kiss that meant the most to him. It was like a silent goodbye in case things didn't work out, was passed between them. "Go get him." She whispered as she pulled back. 
In his shocked state, he turned to look at Philips, who shook his head. "I'm not kissing you!" 
And with that, when the shock had worn off, he jumped onto the plane. 
+++
Near the communications room, Red fought to get inside with Jim and Gabe flanking her. Getting frustrated with how stubborn these last few soldiers were being, she ducked and weaved to avoid getting hit or shot at, feeling lucky that they couldn't aim for shit. 
When she'd had enough, she slammed the end of her staff down on the floor, causing a wave of fire to face out in front of them and they were set ablaze before they fell and died. 
"Good job, North." Gabe said, sounding impressed as he patted her shoulder. 
"Thanks." She said as she shook her hand and the staff returned to its ring form around her finger. "It's nice to let off some steam." 
Jim leaned around Red to look at the burning bodies that laid before them. "Looks like you let off a lot more than steam, Red." 
"It's not as if you can blame me." Red said as she leaned down and picked up a gun from one of the fallen bodies. "Lets get ears on Steve." 
Because the Gods know that she will riot if anything happened to him in a brief moment that she couldn't be with him.
+++
Steve struggled with a pilot atop of one of the odd sorts of jets as it flew through the air. If these planes get off, there's a chance that they'd lose thousands of people. The only chance he got to take out this pilot he was fighting was when he got on top of Steve, he quickly moved to the side and flung the pilot off of him and into the propellers, where he quickly died. 
He was finally able to get into the cockpit of the jet he was on top of, he ejected that last pilot and got inside before flying back into Schmidt's plane. 
When he'd been able to quickly dispatch and disable the rest of the jets and their accompanied pilots, he walked into the main engine room where Schmidt was waiting him.
"You don't give up, do you?" Schmidt asked as he turned to face the Captain.
"Nope." 
They engaged in another fight, but Steve was able to quickly push the Red Skull away from him. "You could have the power of the Gods!" Schmidt yelled. "Yet, you were a flag on your chest and think that you fight a battle for the nations!" He was standing on a platform away from him, next to some sort of odd contraption that looked like it could be holding the cube that Red was looking for. "I've seen the future, Captain, there are no flags." 
"Not in my future!" Steve yelled as he threw his shield at Schmidt, who fell back against the console the Tesseract was being held in. 
The Tesseract exploded in energy and they were surrounded by bright blue energy that then opened up to a portal, relieving space to them; he would have admired it, if he wasn't so focused on stopped the Red Skull. "What have you done?" Schmidt gasped as he leaned to pick up the otherworldly and glowing cube. "No!" He yelled as his body was engulfed in a pillar of blue light and he disappeared with a scream of mixed pain and surprise. The cube fell to the floor of the plane and through it, falling to the Earth below. 
And there went Red's chance of getting her hands on it.
+++
In the control room, Red paced around as she waited for Howard to get everything they needed to be able to talk to Steve back into working order. It was only taking a few minutes, but to her, it felt like it was taking hours. Was her best friend okay? Or was he dead too?
She was about to if it was ready for the third time when Howard jumped up and stepped aside. "There we go, she's all fired up now." 
"You're sure?" 
"Yes, I'm sure." 
"Then why can't we hear-" She broke off when Steve's voice came through the radio. The only thing that was wrong was that the audio coming through was a bit crackly, but otherwise they could hear him clearly. 
"Come in, this is Captain Rogers, do you read me?" 
Red quickly picked up the microphone as she pressed the button. "Steve, it's Red. What's your twenty?" 
"I don't know. Schmidt's dead though." At least that was a piece of good news.
"Alright." Red said, sighing as she ran a shaking hand through her hair. "Please land that plane." 
"I don't think I can do that." 
Red felt her stomach drop as the blood drained from her face. "Why the Hell not?" As he began to answer, Peggy entered the room and looked at her. She shook her head as she passed the microphone to Peggy. 
"Steve, is that you?" Peggy asked. "Are you alright?" 
"Peggy!" He yelled. "Schmidt is dead." 
"What about that plane?" She asked as she and Red shared a look of fear. 
"Yeah, what about the plane?" Red wished she could get her hands to stop shaking. "Why can't you land it?" 
"That's a little harder to explain." 
"Give us your coordinates," Peggy begged, her hands shaking almost as hard as Red's were. "We'll help you find a safe landing site." But even Red didn't know how they would be able to do that. 
"There's not going to be a safe landing, but I can try and force it down." 
"No!" Red yelled. "There's got to be another way." 
"There isn't, Red." 
"We have Howard here, he'll know what to do." Peggy said as they both turned to face Howard, who was shaking his head at them. 
Red chewed on the inside of her cheek as she crossed her arms over her chest. There really was nothing they could do, was there? No way out. Hope for the best... plan for the worst. This was the worst. All of a sudden, she was the burning man again, being tortured in the flames of the own grief that started when Bucky fell off of the train. Just like then, there was nothing she could do now.
"There's not each time, this thing's moving too fast and it's heading for New York." There's a short pause, and then he said. "I gotta put her in the water." 
"There's got to be another way." Red repeated, desperate to find another solution, something that no one had seen yet. 
"Please don't do this." Peggy pleaded. "We have time, we can work it out." 
"Right now, I'm in the middle of nowhere. If I wait any longer, a lot of people are gonna die." 
Red had tears falling down her cheeks as she whimpered. "Please." She whispered. "Please don't leave me too. Please don't do this to me, Steve." But even she couldn't see another way out.
"Red, this is my choice." 
"Please." She repeated as Howard took her into his arms and held her against his chest. He held her, despite the fact that there was a large chance her fire would surround them, just like it had surrounded her and Steve on the train mere days ago.
"Peggy?" Steve asked. 
"I'm here." She said, her voice cracked as she spoke. 
"I'm gonna need a raincheck on that dance." 
Red could hear Peggy forcing back her tears as Peggy spoke. "Alright... a week, next Saturday, at the Stork Club." 
"You got it." 
"Eight o'clock on the dot. Don't you dare be late." 
"You know," Steve said, almost managing to sound amused. "I still don't know how to dance." 
"I'll teach you, just be there." 
"We'll have the band play somethin' slow. I'd hate to step on your-" And then the feed went silent and all the room could hear was static. 
"Steve?" Red whispered. 
"Steve?" Peggy repeated. 
But he said nothing, and he never would. Red fell to the ground as a loud, heart wrenching son tore its way from her throat. Howard came down with her, rocking her back and forth as she clutched at his arm. She had just lost both Steve and Bucky in the same week.
In the week that followed, the world had celebrated freedom from Nazi-Germany, and they-that being the Howling Commandos and Red, celebrated the victory of the war, but their celebration was somber, she wouldn't remember the last time she smiled. 
"To the Captain." Falsworth said. 
Together, they threw back a shot of whiskey, and she leaned against the bar. She'd been wearing one of Bucky's jackets since they got back to London, she was lucky that she found it in the house while packing to get ready to head back home. Red wasn't anywhere ready to head back home, not ready to be alone just yet, but that was always the case. She knew that, for the next few years, maybe even decades, she would always be alone. 
As she sighed and leaned her chin into her hand, Jim turned to look at her. "Are you alright, Red?" 
Red shrugged. "I will be. It'll just take some time." 
"I'm sorry about this." He said as he reached over and gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. "If you need anything, we'll be here for you." 
"Thank you, Jim." 
Red spent the rest of the night with the Commandos, drinking and eating until she had to leave to find the Tesseract and... Steve's body. It wasn't a thought she could bring herself to think of until she was on that damned searching boat. She hadn't slept enough, and when she had been able to sleep, she was plagued by nightmares that she didn't need, or even want.
"The plane was called the Valkyrie?" She asked as she read over the file that Howard had handed to her the moment she boarded the ship.
"Apparently." 
"I don't like that detail." 
"I didn't think you would, given where you're from and all." 
Red sighed and stayed silent. Turned out that finding the Tesseract was the easiest part of their trip, finding Steve and the Valkyrie was. She anxiously sipped on a coffee as she wanted for any kind of news from the techs that were on board.
"Sir?" One of them said as he approached her and Howard. "Ma'am?" 
They look over his shoulder at the system over his shoulder, seeing that they were still scanning for the wreckage but that they had found nothing. 
"Take us us to the next grid point." Howard said. 
"But there's no trace of wreckage, and the energy signature stops here." 
Red let out a shaky breath as her eyes scanned the water that surrounded them. "Please take us to the next point." 
"Just keep looking." Howard said as he reached over to rub her shoulder.