I'd Bleed for You

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

*~*~*~*

{Steve Roger's POV}

"Close it." I ordered Natasha as I saw Tony fly back toward the ground while the nuke went right into the portal. We all watched as the portal vanished from the sky.

"Good job Falconeri." I could just see Barton smiling with relief from where he stood on the roof of a nearby building, just like I was doing right now as the aliens around me all just dropped dead, confirming that the nuke had gone off. I waited for some smart mouth comment from Tony or Nichole, but none came.

"Stark? Falconeri? What's going on? Where are you two?" I asked as I watched the sky for a sign of either of them. After a second I saw Tony's red and gold armor flying towards me.

"You and I are going to have a fight Falconeri." He muttered as he landed next to me. His suit in less than perfect condition. "I'll be sending you the bill to my suit's repairs."

"Agent Falconeri?" I asked again. She never passed up an opportunity to knock heads with Tony.

"S-s-shut it S-s-stark." Nichole stuttered.

"Where are you?" I asked her. Something in her voice was off, she didn't stutter, not even after Coulson died.

"This isn't r-right," she muttered to herself instead of answering.

"What isn't right?" Natasha asked, she sounded as uneasy as I felt. She could hear the difference in Nichole, too.

"It s-should be c-closing up already." I could hear the panic setting into her voice now. Something was seriously wrong with her and I didn't like it, she needed help.

"Barton, do you see her?" I demanded more than asked.

"Around the corner, down that street, and to the left." He instructed after a minute. "She doesn't look good."

"Stark, go ahead!" I took off running in the direction Barton had instructed while Tony flew ahead of me with his suit. I didn't pay attention to anything as I ran. All I could think of was the last time something like this had happened, the last time I lost part of my team.

Bucky.

"There's a lot of blood!" Tony yelled into his earpiece as they came into my sight. Barton was with them. Both of them were kneeling over where Nichole was laying on the ground, her skin paler than usual.

"What happened?" I asked as I took in the scene before me, the bloody wound to her abdomen.

"Too much air." Nichole gave a rough laugh, I could see the blood in the corner of her mouth.

"Don't talk, we'll get you to the hellicarrier as soon as Thor and Romanoff have Loki and get the jet here." I instructed.

"S-shut it Rogers." She gave that rough laugh again as she looked at me. There were tears in the corners of her eyes but it seemed like she was forcing them to stay in place, refusing to let herself cry. "I h-have book in m-my r-room. Read it."

"Don't give us that dying wishes shit!" Tony snapped at her as he and Barton kept holding some random cloth to her abdomen. Blood was pooling around around their hands as they did this along with another puddle forming on the ground around her. There was so much blood. Nobody could live if they were losing that much blood. Looking around for anything that might be able to help, I could see the a dead alien lying a couple feet away. In its hands was a sword that had blood covering the entire blade.

It'd stabbed her.

"If I w-was going t-to live then I'd b-be healing n-now." She closed her eyes as she struggled to breathe, let alone talk to us.

"That's how you survived the stairs." Natasha's voice whispered through our earpieces.

"I'll t-tell Phil hi f-for all of you." A small smile filled her paling lips. In that moment I could literally see her body go still with her final breath and see the color leave her cheeks.

"She's dead." Barton said in disbelief as he pulled his hands away, they were covered with her blood. Tony looked at both of us, his mask raised so we could see his face.

"What are you doing?! Help me!" He snapped at the both of us.

"Stark-" I started.

"She's not dead!" He cut me off as he looked down at Nichole's body. I could see the pain in his face he looked down at her, not wanting to believe what we all knew. "She's not dead. She saved me, she sent that nuke through so I wouldn't have to. She's not dead!"

"Tony," we all looked to see Natasha, Thor, and Bruce standing behind us now with Loki, Selvig, and the tesseract in tow. All of them were looking down at Nichole's body.

Natasha's face held disbelief, she'd seen Nichole go through something that was supposed to kill her less than twenty-four hours ago and she'd come out of it without a scratch, now she was dead. Thor looked in disbelief and guilt shining in his eyes; Loki had caused this war and he was Thor's brother, he was probably blaming himself. Bruce just looked pained, if any of us could say we were close with Nichole then it'd probably be him. They never fought, she was kind with him or at least civil. Then there was Loki. He had a smirk on his lips, like he was proud that he'd caused her death.

"We need to get back." Natasha broke the silence that had fallen over us.

"I'll get her." Bruce volunteered as he came over. I just watched as Tony finally withdrew his hands as Bruce picked Nichole's small body up in his arms. Blood dripped from her clothes as he held her but he didn't give it any notice. He just turned and headed back towards where the jet was. All of us followed behind him in silence.

Mourning our lost teammate.