Tony is breathing, and so is Steve. It's the only thing they can concentrate on. Gunned down by Bruce, Bruce of all people, and now they're lying in a ditch, in an unknown island, by the adults who were scared of them and decided to fight back. It's all kind of like Lord of the Flies; the way that them, the dubbed Avengers, had stuck together in the first night. The first night of this messed up game. Messed up, apparently legal game.

Then Loki, Thor's brother, had put cyanide in breakfast the next morning. Clint, the overeager asshole, had been the first to taste it. Natasha, eyes burning and hair flying around her like fire, had whipped out her pistol and shot Loki in the leg. He didn't get away, and she locked him in the freezer in the abandoned house they took over. She left him there.

"You can't trust anyone," were her parting words before she took off, out the door and Clint's bow and quiver in her hand.

Thor was long gone by then.

Tony, Bruce, and Steve agreed to separate, but by noon Steve had found him near a danger zone, because in all the fuss and Tony not having any sense of self-regard, he had forgotten to take down notes when Fury was busy with the morning report. And they decided to partner up, and it was all good, because they trusted each other, and that was enough. They survived.

Until now.

There was only so much a pot lid and a wrench could do, and Bruce had a gun.

"Fuck," Tony breathed, aching all over. They were lying side by side, the six shots Steve took the stomach staining the forest floor. Tony himself had only gotten one. In the chest. To the heart.

Steve laughed, with a wheeze similar to when he still had asthma. It makes Tony smile, albeit shakily, knowing that if he's dying, at least he's with Steve. He turns his head to see Steve grinning at him, and they are so close. If they could move, if they weren't dying, if they were alive and healthy and normal kids again, they would have...they would have leaned closer, like they actually had a chance.

The tears wash away the grime and sweat and dirt and blood on his cheek, but he manages to breathe, "If...if we, we had..." And Tony knows he only has a few minutes left, maybe two or three, but he has to say this out loud, let Steve know-

And maybe he knows already, because Steve, glorious, stupid, perfect Steve, is smiling.

"I know, Tony," he says, and Tony brings himself to smile, one last time, as his heart stops.

Steve looks at him, glassy brown eyes so devoid of the life and brightness they usually have, and feels a sob rack through him. Shakily, tentatively, he tries to caress his cold cheek. But he's dying, he knows it, and his hand falls, just a few centimeters away from where Tony's body laid. Where they could've touched. Where they could've been together.

"If," Steve whispers, "If we had." And he looks at Tony, so beautiful even in death, and it takes his breath away.

"If we had a chance, I'd tell you I loved you."

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#8 Rogers, dead.

#12 Stark, dead.

11 left.