This may be a long author's note, so please stick with me. First of all, this is purely a work of fiction. I have not read the script for AoU, or seen the film. This is a story, and the events will most likely not happen in the movie. One major thing is that Bucky is not in the AoU, and he is in this story, so don't go saying I spoiled the movie, because I did not :)
Second, I worked my butt off for this story. It's a three-shot. If you have to leave criticism, at least try to be constructive please ;) I can't even explain how important reviews are. Please, take a little time and write something so I can improve! This story has all of the Avengers, but it focuses on Romanogers. I know, Steve and Natasha may be a little out of character, but I'm trying my best here :)
Third, I hope you all enjoy this. It does get a little emotional.
I don't own Marvel or any characters in this story.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
-Dylan Thomas 1914-1953
Steve stared down at his hand, dry and bloodied, intertwined with his brother's. Bucky lay on the ground, face-up, the bullet wound in his chest still leaking crimson blood. The black uniform he wore had been compromised.
The air around Steve was smoky and dusty, an array of destruction was all he could see in his vicinity. Not a civilian in site. They had all run screaming in terror as the robots took over the city. The ones that didn't die in the initial attack had fled and not returned since.
Lamp posts were bent over and sparking with broken electrical wires. Buildings were no longer buildings, just aimless piles of rubble all coming together to form a bigger pile of nothingness. Civilian corpses littered the streets, only adding to the grotesqueness of the situation.
Fires still flickered in random sections of the abandoned city in the afternoon twilight. Cars lay overturned and smoldering in the dying light. A day of fighting and scheming had left Steve physically and emotionally robbed in more ways than one.
Steve was looking at his surroundings so his eyes wouldn't go back to Bucky's frozen form. His best friend, his brother in arms, lay dead on the uneven pavement.
One of Ultron's minions was the cause of the blood that had started to dry on Steve's hand, the far-away look Bucky's eyes had held. In the midst of battle, with the metallic monsters swarming all around them, Steve and Bucky had worked like a team, as they always had. Until one robot snuck around and put a bullet in Bucky's leg, causing him to lose his balance and concentration. The bullet that followed had ended him.
Steve had screamed as he watched Bucky fall to the ground. He finished off the rest of the robots in a furious rage, but he was still too late. By the time the robots were gone and he had returned to Bucky's side, his eyes were fixated on some point in the distance. Closing Bucky's eyes was the hardest thing Steve had ever done.
He never got to say goodbye. That was what bothered him the most.
In the end, Ultron lay in a pile of slightly melted metal off to the side of one of the streets, once red eyes no longer gleaming with light. Seeing Steve's distress, the rest of the team had all decided to split up to finish off the threat and leave Steve with his grief.
Tony and Thor were gone, flying around somewhere to pick off the last of Ultron's minions. Natasha and Clint were doing the same, except on the ground. He had no idea where Bruce was, he just hoped that he was safe. Loosing one person in a day would be hard enough. Two would be unbearable.
Steve simply sat, wanting it all to be another nightmare, one he would wake up from and Bucky would be alright. He would be alive.
All of those times where he had remembered the frosty bite of the wind on his lips, the way Bucky's cold hand had reached for him, and failed. How Bucky had fallen into that snowy place where the river ran down below, hands still outstretched if Steve could still catch him.
Every morning he awoke, drenched in sweat and breathing heavily. Every morning he pushed those memories down, telling no one about them. Every day, he went for a morning run to try and relieve his consciousness of the images of the time he had failed.
And every day, the pressure got worse and worse. Steve, being the man he was and not wanting anyone to worry about him, still kept it all hidden.
But when he saw Bucky on the half-ruined street that fateful day, everything seemed to wash away and his new mission became redeeming himself for his friend, saving him when he had failed before.
Bucky had eventually returned to the tower and Steve had welcomed him home with open arms. He was there at Bucky's side when the nightmares would leave him screaming in agony. The roles drastically switched as Steve became the one looking after Bucky. But he did get better and soon it was the way things were before Steve had lost Bucky the first time. He felt much better knowing that someone was there who he could talk to about his memories, share stories with. It was one of the calmest feelings he had ever experienced, having someone to talk to who understood.
Now, he had lost Bucky again. This time, for real.
He knew that this time, when the nightmares would come for him again, their black swirls of mist curling over him as he slept, he would not be able to push them away. He either had to go crazy or tell someone, a choice he would rather not make. Bucky was his problem, his grief to deal with, and he didn't want to burden anyone else more than he needed to.
He sat in silence, his throat already raw from screaming, begging for his friend to come back. Bucky was always there for him. The one time he had needed Steve, Steve was gone. His brother was not there to hold his hand in passing, so he had gone alone. The most formidable task of his life, Bucky had to take head-on and solitarily.
Memories kept flashing before his eyes. Memories of the good times. When Bucky had stood up for him countless times. The army. The horrible day on the train. The surprise when he saw Bucky as an agent for HYDRA. The look on Bucky's face when he had come back.
And now, the straight line Bucky's lips created, frozen on his face forever.
Looking down at his friend again, the blood strewn across his face, Steve knew he had to leave at some point. He had to find the rest of his team. He squeezed Bucky's limp hand one last time and set it down on top of his body. His metal arm gleamed in the passing sunlight, the red star made even more red with streaks of his blood.
Steve grunted as he stood up, clutching his probably broken ribs. Blood leaked out of a bullet wound on his right arm as he pushed himself up. "I'm with you 'till the end of the line, don't you ever forget that you jerk," Steve said to Bucky's broken form. It occurred to Steve that he was talking to a man who could neither hear him or respond back.
Jerk. Even when he said it to someone else, the name was still Bucky's completely. He would come back for him, of course, but he had to find the other Avengers first.
A tear dropped from his face down to the ash-covered ground below.
Steve turned away from the scene and took a few steps away from the body before he heard a scream.
His mind broke away from his sadness and he grasped his shield tighter, running towards the sound. He picked his way carefully through the deteriorated city, stepping over piles of rubble and using others as supports when the fire in his lungs threatened to black out his vision.
It continued, a horrible, guilty cry that echoed through the barren streets.
Steve got closer to the screams just as they stopped. He looked around a burning cafe on the corner of one of the streets.
Sitting in the rubble, hair a mess, shoulders hunched in sadness, sat Natasha.
Steve approached carefully, his boots cracking the shards of glass that lay all over the broken street.
Natasha heard and whipped her head around. Once she lay eyes on him, she brought her hand up to her mouth to stifle another sob. Thin trails of tears had streaked across her face, cutting trails in the dirt.
She looked…vulnerable.
In all the time Steve had worked with her, he had never seen her cry, had never seen her show more than a little of her softer side. What she did have of a softer side, and what she chose to show, mainly belonged to Clint. He, of course, knew it existed, but never asked because he had reason to. But seeing her, a broken woman, sitting amongst the small fires and debris, it made him feel…something.
Steve ran forward to comfort her, to say anything to ease whatever pain she was feeling. He stopped a few steps from her as her eyes drifted down to the pavement next to her legs.
Clint lay beside her, his face and hair filthy with dirt, laying perfectly still. His face was paler than it should've been and a long gash was crossed from his temple down to his chin. His hand was still securely stuck to the bow. It took Steve a moment to figure out what was wrong. Two wounds on his chest seeped crimson onto the ground, making a small river of blood that travelled away from his body.
The red bird that covered the blackness of his outfit had been shot down, and Clint had followed.
"Natasha?" Steve asked as he gingerly sat down beside her, his ribs burning.
She caught him off guard as she wrapped him in a hug, her breathing uneven on his shoulder as she fought down another sob. His arms went around her back, caressing her, moving slowly over her torn uniform. When she finally pulled away, she wiped the tears from her eyes with a dirtied sleeve. "I thought I lost you too," she whispered, her eyes locking with Steve's.
"What happened?" Steve asked, motioning to Clint's body. It was no secret, he was gone. Two people in one day. A feeling of dumbness washed over Steve, threatening to drown him.
"They jumped us. Those freaking robots!" Natasha yelled, kicking her heel out to the ground, pushing away a chunk of rock. "I got beaten by a bunch of unfeeling, programmed things. I let them get to Clint. I could have done better." She took a shaky breath and pushed a hand through her hair.
He took this in for a second. "I'm sure there was nothing else you could've done," he said quietly.
"I could have killed them faster. I could have gotten supplies. Damn it, I could have let him not have to die in my arms!" she replied with a shaky breath.
"I could have done that same thing. I could have stopped them faster so I would've been able to see him die at least. So he would've had someone to hold on to before going. Clint at least had that luxury. He wasn't alone."
"Bucky?" Natasha asked, pushing a stray hair from her face in the faint breeze that lifted some of the smoke from the ground.
Steve nodded and looked away.
"At least he got to know you again."
"Yeah. I lost him once and it hurt like hell. Loosing him again, for real this time, is going through hell and back. I'm so damn tired of losing everyone," Steve replied. "Sorry."
It took her a moment to figure out what he said sorry for. When she figured it out, her chapped lips drew up at the edges in the small smirk she was known for. "Rogers, that is not cursing," Natasha smirked. "If we survive this, you have got to stop being so-"
"So what?" Steve asked, curious.
"So 1940's!" Natasha replied.
"Well, kind of hard to do when I'm still adjusting, but I'll try my best." A small smile played on his lips, something that he didn't think he would do that day.
Natasha tried to shift her position on the ground and grimaced in pain.
"What's wrong?" Steve asked, a look of worry crossing his face.
"My ankle. Stepped on a loose piece of rubble. It's probably sprained. Doesn't hurt enough to be broken," she said, unzipping her boot. Her ankle was indeed swollen and out of place. She zipped her boot up and her eyes went back to Barton.
"Once we get back, we'll get that fixed," Steve said reassuringly. Natasha only nodded in response.
It was quiet for a minute as they listened to more fragments of rubble tumble down and land with a thud onto the ground. Natasha lay down onto Steve and let his strong, safe arms envelop her. She leaned her head against his shoulder and sighed.
Steve let out a long sigh. "Finding out I had been frozen for seventy years and having to adjust was the hardest thing I had to do. Until now. Walking away from Bucky, closing his eyes, it hurt, you know?" Steve asked.
Natasha nodded. "He was the only one who understood me and was okay with it."
They sat in silence again, in mourning, in remembrance, for the ones they had lost. More rubble fell around them, as if the world was literally collapsing.
"There!" someone yelled. Multiple sets of footsteps sounded behind them.
Steve turned slightly and could not hide the smile on his face when he saw the other Avengers running up to meet them. Thor was carrying Bucky's lifeless body in his arms as Tony jogged up to them in his beat-up suit.
"We had no idea where you guys were. We found him and thought the worst," Tony said out of breath, motioning to Bucky. He looked to Natasha, who's eyes were still on Clint.
Tony followed her gaze and Steve could see his heart drop. "No," he whispered.
"Tony, you okay?" Bruce asked as he walked up behind him, shirtless, so he must've transformed into the Hulk at some point. His eyes fell to Barton as well and he sucked in a breath.
Thor was the last to arrive and set Bucky down gently next to Steve.
"Thanks, Thor," Steve mumbled.
"It was my honor, Lord Steven. Is Sir Barton sleeping, tired from the long battle?" Thor asked in his innocent voice. His usually blonde hair was more of a dark blonde now, dirt and ash covering the usually yellow glow. Thor was indeed battered, as well of the rest of them, each portraying their fare shares of gashes and blood. But none of them seemed to be hurt badly.
Natasha let out another small cry and buried her face in Steve's uniform, hiding from the cruel world. He hesitated as he brought his hand up but then brought it down and back up, gently caressing her head.
"He has passed?" Thor asked again, cocking his head to the side. Sadness was becoming evident as the slight smirk that always seemed to grace his face faded away.
Natasha nodded into Steve's uniform, still not looking at any of them.
Thor took a long sigh and sat down on the ground next to Steve. Bruce and Tony did the same and eventually they formed a semi-circle around their friend in the broken landscape.
"Do not fear. He will make it to Valhalla, this I am most certain of."
Natasha brought her head out from Steve's chest and wiped her eyes. "Thanks, Thor," she said in a small voice. They sat in the semi-circle for a moment, the three men trying to take in that they had lost not one, but two comrades in the same day.
It was Tony that finally broke the silence.
"We should start heading back," Tony said, almost afraid someone would hear him.
"Alright," Steve replied as he stood up, still clutching his ribs. They burned like he had swallowed fire, but the pain of losing Bucky was still far greater.
Thor picked up Bucky once again like a limp rag doll. Tony walked over in his Iron Man suit and lifted Clint off the ground.
Natasha started to say something but Tony cut her off. "I'll be careful, I know," he said. It was almost comical to see what loss could do to Tony, who was usually the funny, stupid, sarcastic one. Natasha couldn't decide if she liked this version of Tony better or not. He just didn't seem like himself.
Before Natasha could object, Steve got his arm under her legs and lifted her up bridal style. She grimaced as her hurt ankle was lifted into the air, but eventually gave in and sagged against Steve. They were both exhausted, physically and emotionally.
Each of them was carrying someone else, even Bruce, who was carrying the Hulk, deep and hidden inside him. Two dead, one injured, one out of sight.
They left the smoking ruins of the city filled with ghosts, still burning in the afternoon air.
Fury met them at the doors to the tower and took Clint and Bucky to be prepared for the funeral. Natasha looked away and balled up what she could of Steve's uniform, refusing to watch as Clint was put into the back of the truck and driven off.
Steve, however, watched. He wanted to remember every detail about Bucky, for after a few days, he would never see him again.
The realization was just hitting him, running over him like a train, refusing to let him get up. No one would be there to understand what he had gone through in the 40's. No one to laugh at his terrible jokes. He had lost a friend, a comrade, a used-to be enemy, a prankster, his rock. But most of all he had lost his brother.
When Natasha looked up at Steve, his face was hard and thin streaks of water were making their way down his cheeks.
Tony, Bruce, and Thor all went up to their respective rooms without a sound as Steve and Natasha watched the trucks fade into the distance, taking their friends with them.
Steve carried Natasha up to her floor and lay her down on the bed.
"I need a shower," she mumbled.
"You can't take one with your ankle. Maybe take a bath instead?" Steve asked.
She nodded and he swiftly turned around and started the water as she undressed and wrapped a towel around herself. He then returned and gave his support, helping her into the bath before closing the door behind him.
Steve then went up to his floor and peeled out of his uniform, which was stained with dirt and blood. Who's blood exactly, he had no idea. Steve gently sat his shield down on his bed and did not care how dirty it was. Marks of bullets scraping against the metal had left its paint chipped and the entire thing was glazed over in a fine layer of dirt. But it was still his shield. Hell, his shield was him if anything.
He looked over his room, his eyes landing on a picture of him and Bucky, taken during the war. The paper was yellow and curling at the edges, but it was still his favorite image. Both of them, in full combat gear, guns at their sides, but the joy they expressed on their faces seemed to melt that all away. They were just two men having a good time before going into a death trap.
Steve smiled and picked up the picture, wiping tears out of his eyes. He took the picture and set it atop his shield.
Even though the shield was his material protector, Bucky had been there all the times he hadn't had a weapon.
He took a quick shower, watching as the bloody water spiraled down the drain and out of sight. The water stung his scrapes, but that was nothing compared to the fire that was engulfing his lungs as he struggled to get himself clean. He did, however, make do, and threw on some clean clothes before going back to Natasha's floor.
He gently tapped on the door. "You done?" he asked.
"Don't rush me, Rogers," she replied. He could hear the smile in her voice. "But yes, I am done.
He entered the bathroom and helped her out, again closing his eyes before she got a towel. When she was decent and he reopened his eyes, she was grinning.
"What?" he asked innocently.
"Steve, your 1940 side is showing again," she said as she began to brush out her hair on one foot.
She then got changed and soon she was sitting on the bed, hair wet and clean, as Steve stood by her feet with an ankle wrap.
"This is going to hurt," he warned.
"Nothing compared to the pain I've felt today. Just immobilize it and I'll have Bruce look at it tomorrow," she said and turned her head to the side.
Steve gingerly applied the wrap, making sure it was tight, but not too tight. Natasha was silent the entire time. "Better?" he asked as he finished and stood back up.
She nodded. "Thanks, Steve, for everything."
"My pleasure, it was no problem at all," he replied and opened the door.
"Where are you going?" Natasha asked curiously as the untucked the sheets from the bed.
"To my floor."
"No," she simply replied and smirked at his confusion.
"Excuse me?" Steve asked as a questioning look crossed his face.
"I lost Clint today, you lost Bucky. The worst thing is being alone to grieve. Plus, I don't want to let you out of my sight. Not tonight," she replied innocently.
Steve took a moment to contemplate this, his chest moving up and down slightly in the pale lamplight, each breath labored.
"Fine," he mumbled. He dimmed the light so it was barely on and crawled into the bed next to Natasha as she lay down.
They lay with their backs to each other, soundless and trying to sleep.
Steve grunted as he tried to find the right position and ended up laying on his back so he didn't hurt his ribs any more than he had to.
"You okay?" Natasha mumbled.
"Yeah. Ribs. We can both go see Banner tomorrow," Steve replied.
"Good plan." She was out like a light.
Steve had never been with a woman really before, and had never slept in the same bed as one. "But this is Natasha. We need each other right now," he chided himself.
He gave a long sigh and looked over to Natasha, whose breathing was even with sleep. His eyes growing heavy from the long day, Steve eventually succumbed as well.
I will get the second chapter up as soon as I can. I appreciate your reviews so much, so please, help a fellow writer out :) I will respond to reviews in the next chapter as well. Thank you so much for reading!
