Flicker ✦ STEVE ROGERS¹ [✓]

09 | WHAT IT MEANS TO BELIEVE

STEVE SAT AT THE END OF THE TABLE, NUMB WITH SHOCK.

Phil Coulson was dead - killed by Loki's hand before he escaped. Steve had been through this type of thing before, so he knew what it was like to lose a soldier. But this was different. Coulson had been different. He was so much more than just another casualty of war. And he didn't deserve to die.

The team sat at the same glass table on the bridge as before, only most of them were missing now. Natasha was with Agent Barton in the hospital wing - apparently she'd knocked the mind control right out of him during their fight, when she hit his head really hard against the railing. Thor and Bruce were gone as well. Thor had been dropped from the sky after Loki had tricked and trapped him, and the Hulk had gone down with the jet he had attacked.

And Kato. She had been hit the worst. She had been taken to the infirmary after she'd been stabbed by Loki and left for dead. Steve was told that the wound was dangerous, and one of the medical officers had taken her out of the detention level so she wouldn't face the same fate as Coulson. Even though she'd told him that she wasn't invincible, and that stab wounds could hurt her, Steve was still incredibly worried about her. And if he was being honest with himself, he couldn't help but feel responsible. Maybe if he had just been there to help her, he might have been able to save her. Maybe she wouldn't be laying in the infirmary, nearly on the brink of death.

Only he and Stark were left unharmed. Agent Hill was in the room with them, the look of numb shock on her devastated face mirroring their own. Fury stood in front of them, his face expressionless. None of them said a single word, too shocked and saddened to speak.

"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.

Steve picked them up, his heart sinking and his guilt growing. The cards 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 Steve and Tony. "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. It was obvious he didn't want to hear any more. And Steve let him go. 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 Kato. He wanted to see if she was awake. So he left without so much as a word to anybody, heading to the infirmary so he could see her.

Steve wandered the halls for a while until he found the infirmary. But after searching through each of the rooms, he couldn't find her. When he talked to one of the doctors, they told him she was on the observation deck. But how was that possible? The deck was on the other side of the carrier, and her injuries had been far too great for her to move that far on her own.

So that's when the doctor told him: they'd taken Kato out to the sunlight, where she practically healed herself. She really is solar-powered, Steve thought.

Steve found Kato on the observation deck just like the doctors had said. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, her hands resting on her knees. The sun was shining through the window, illuminating her in a golden glow. And as he grew closer, he saw that her eyes were closed, and she was taking slow, steady breaths. It looked as if she was meditating.