I Thought You Were Different: Part 5

Hell

HEAVY ANGST.  CHARACTER DEATH.  IT'S HEAVY, SERIOUSLY.

Steve awoke inside of hell. Fire-filled, raging, hell.

Coughing the smoke from his lungs, shaking and scared, he tried to take a quick inventory of his own injuries, thankful for his ability to move and breathe still intact. His movements weren't without pain, however, but he didn't care; pushing himself up to stand, it was immediately clear that he had two broken legs, nearly falling on his face when they gave way. "Okay, Rogers," he hissed through his pain, pushing back tears that he wouldn't acknowledge, "they'll heal. Just get up. One step at a time..."

He tried again, only to have the same response of tumbling over. So instead, he crawled through the rubble that was once home, all the while taking notes of whose voices he heard and whose he had yet to distinguish. The number of those heard paled in comparison to those not, and when it came down to it, there were only four that he wanted.

When a new and different singe of pain shot up his legs, he allowed only one breath of relief; it was the pain of his body trying to repair itself, to set the fragments of bone straight again, so he stilled and waited as his brain screamed impatiently for him to keep going. Taking only the tiniest risk to push up on his elbows, he looked from window to window, remembering that he had last seen you outside, cursing and screaming aloud at what he was seeing now.

~~~

"(Y/N)! (Y/N), we need to move," Tony ordered you, grabbing your arm and dragging you across the lawn, with no time to wait for you to actually wake up again. "Sweetheart, please, I need you to move!" His body was in autopilot, not connected with rational thought; your neck may have been broken for all he knew, but he didn't allow those thoughts in because it would mean that he had no reason to live if you weren't.

"Stark!"

"Oh, thank god," he sighed, turning towards T'Challa's voice, "I need to get up there, can you take her?"

"Yes, go," the king agreed, rushing to kneel at your side and push his hands beneath you, "I will keep her safe until she wakes."

Tony's boot jets sputtered and came to life, but he paused for only a second, turning back before lifting off to ask the question he didn't want an answer to, "T'Challa, who's left?"

"You must go," he deflected, "there is no time for heartbreak or mourning. The fight continues."

"There's no time for cryptic bullshit, either! Just tell me! Pepper? Steve? The kids?"

T'Challa couldn't break the man this way, not with so much yet to be lost or gained, and the fight couldn't lose Iron Man at this stage of it. Yes, there were casualties, but he was being fully honest in his answer now, as lying would bring no solace or comfort anyway. "I saw movement from only the Captain."

~~~

With walls crashing into broken pieces around him, and the shell of the compound gone, the black sky was left overhead for Steve to search as he tried to get his bearings and sense of direction in the destruction. He had forced his body to crawl far enough to see the edge of the rubble, turning back to get a better look and to search for his loved ones. He had no idea where the kids had gone to hide, and he hoped that it was in any building but this one; he wanted desperately to talk to you, to know that you were alive and to pray that you knew where they were. But he also understood that having that come true was unlikely now.

He began to understand that it was his mistake that brought the end of his team. He had turned them into captive victims to wait for their fate with no way to escape.