Vengeance [Avengers Fanfiction]

[Epilogue]

[Steve]

    It had been only a week since I clawed my way though the rubble of Fycon City's town hall and was dragged onto a quinjet by Stark. A week since we had narrowly escaped with our lives and had been spectators to a brilliant explosion of silver light that shattered the windows of the city hall, snapped the marble pillars like toothpicks.

    The quinjet had rocked sharply as a wall of energy slammed into it, even with us hundreds of feet in the air. We, the Avengers, watched as the atomic bomb of pure energy detonating from Quinn's soul had scorched everything it touched, demolished cars and fell buildings.

    My hopes of finding the Phantom alive had crumbled with the town hall and the rest of Fycon City.

    I sighed in exhaustion as I walked into Stark Tower, accompanied by all of my teammates except for Thor, who had to return to Asgard. Catching a glance of myself in the frosted, dark window dotted with streetlights, I paused. My hair was neat and my face was still bruised and scabbed from wounds I had received in the battle. My reflection wore my Captain America suit, which had been quickly restored from the damages it had sustained in the fight. A dark blue cowl dangles from my hand as I studied myself.

    I was Steve Rogers. I was Captain America. I didn't look any different, but I sure as hell had changed. For the better or the worse, I didn't know.

    "Good job at the press conference, Steve." Bruce said, clapping me on the shoulder.

    The doctor gave a sympathetic smile, knowing how hard the past five hours had been not just on me, but on all of us. An investigation had been started by the government on the events of what was now known as the Night of Demons. Agent Coulson, along with the help of other agents, had managed to evacuate nearly all of Fycon City. They had done all they could, but there hadn't been enough time. Three-hundred and thirty-five people were turned to ash when Quinn's soul exploded, also killing her. The final body count was still rising as the dusty fragments of human remains were being recovered..

    The remnants of the Fycon City police force had looked into the incident and had concluded that the Phantom had conducted an act of terrorism by murdering the head councilman Corvus Vermont and his personal assistant, young, innocent Silas Graye.

    Did I mention that the Fycon City police chief was a member of the League?

    When the news of this was released I had burst into Fury's office to demand that SHIELD issue a statement that contradicted that of the Fycon City Police Department. People had to know that yes, eve though Quinn had killed over three-hundred people when her soul tore apart against her will, she had saved the world from being overpowered by demons. She wasn't the monster that the media was crafting her into.

    Fury reminded me that we were lucky the Phantom didn't wipe out all of the state of New York, or even the entirety of the North East of America. He said that she didn't deserve honor, wasn't respected enough for the truth to be told. There were already tens of thousands of refugees that had fled the city and surged into New York. There was enough chaos and disorder enough without revealing that HYDRA had infiltrated and controlled a whole city. If the truth about Corvus Vermont and the League was revealed, thousands, if not all, of Fycon City citizens would have to be interrogated and brought to court, which would take well over thirty years. In short, it wasn't worth the time, funds, or effort.

    The Director assured me that SHIELD would find and handle the main ringleaders of the League, Everyone else involved in the murder of Quinn and her family would have to be let go. I left his office seething in rage but forced to depart with a polite yet aggressive, "Yes, Director."