Warnings for torture, emotional pain, manipulation, and Steve's absolutely deplorable sense of self-esteem.
Steve Rogers is not the heart of the Avengers.
This is the critical mistake that she has made. She didn't think it through all the way. Steve can't stand spotty tacticians. People of this new decade were so fast. And in their speed, they disrespected thoroughness, attention to detail. They never let things languish, let the presence of an idea roll around their tongue. He finds it to be the biggest generational flaw they have.
But Steve, Steve is from another time, a slower one. He's positive that if she had taken the time to look, to see past the surface of their dynamic, their situations would be much different. It sounds strange that he's critiquing his enemy's poorly constructed campaign, but the brutal, inherent mistake she's made pertains directly to him and his team, and it burns against his irises.
"The Avengers," she drawls. Her lips push together around the words, crowding them like she's wants to spit them out. "So arrogant, you are, captain."
She leans closer, and he watches the vein pulse in her neck. He's still coming down from the first shot of electricity. His bare shoulders heave up and down. She presses the knife against his chest, eyes glazed as she watches the skin over his heart move against the deadly weapon.
"I suppose it's not surprising. Americans are notorious for their egos," she whispers. "But I expected better from you. Instead, here we are. You're mine, and they're yours."
Steve snorts. It's more of a huff and a smirk, but he can see it aggravate her nerves.
Blood trickles from the corner of his mouth.
She's wrong.
Steve is not the heart of the Avengers.
He knows this as he stares at the cell directly across from him. The only thing between Steve and his team are fifteen feet and a line of bars that not even Thor can pull apart. He knows; they've tried. Behind that, faces dirty and grim under the harsh light of a single, naked bulb, are the rest of the famed Avengers. Their eyes look haunted under the light, but not because of Steve, he knows. This isn't about him. This is going to hurt them, but not because they lack a heartbeat. Steve is the brain, perhaps.
But he's not irreplaceable.
Steve has never quite connected with his team the way they have with each other. He doesn't talk enough, share enough. He's the quiet one, and whenever they try to pull him out, he pulls back. He regrets it now. He regrets it fiercely. He's like a sentry, not an acting participant.
But he loves them. God, does he love them.
They'll be just fine. He has to believe that. They cannot possibly miss a man who they never truly attached to.
"This has to happen, captain," she snarls.
The knife goes into his stomach slowly. She has to push it because the serum had tried so incredibly hard to make him invincible. Someone whimpers.
Steve gasps as it rips his skin, feels the blood start pouring down his left leg.
"You're wrong," he laughs. He has to stop because a strange, warm liquid shoots up his throat as he coughs and coats his chin.
"What could I possibly be wrong about?" she asks breathlessly. She looks crazed, delighted.
Steve struggles to lift his head, tries to stare at the wall behind their heads.
"I'm not the heart."
And a stricken look crosses their faces in one heavy wave, but someone has to say. it. They have to know.
She looks taken back, but a wicked grin pulls her lips, and she glances at his team and back at him.
"Is that so? Is that what you think?"
He's more lightheaded than he's ever been in his life. He can feel the blood draining out of his wound with a startling sense of awareness.
Steve overcompensates when he lifts his sagging head, lets it loll back and stare at the ceiling. He's tired.
"Try know."
She tilts her head, considering. "Hmm," she hums.
Steve has two seconds to prepare before the electricity tenses every muscle in his body. He hears himself scream. He sounds like a man being tortured.
The electricity leaves.
Steve's crying. It's not much. He can't breathe enough for that. But tears are streaking down his cheeks and there's a strange hitch in his lungs every time he inhales.
He's crying because they have to watch this. They have to live with this. He has to die.
She snarls something unintelligible and shocks him again.
Thoughts are useless. He can't think. He just knows. He focuses on that, wraps himself around the thought as pain wracks his every molecule. If the Avengers are a single organism, with blood and sweat and love circulating around the body, then Tony is the heart, and Steve is the direction. And his role can be replaced.
She hits him again with the prod, thousands of volts pulse through his body, agony rippling up and down his spine, and it hurts. It hurts more than anything has ever hurt before. It hurts like hell, but all he can think of when is his bulging eyes look straight across is the way Tony looks like a heart, like a flesh and blood thing that can keep them going. And Natasha the fingertips and Thor the strength and Bruce the mind and Clint the glue.
And Steve can't possibly be the heart of the Avengers when he's already been blessed with the heart of another team. This thing, these people, he was already blessed once. The Commandos, they were his. And he doesn't have a good enough soul to have the luck of another team like that.
She releases him, and Steve sags.
His vision flickers in and out. The pain of hanging by his arms becomes a distance ache. Everything starts to hurt less. Everything starts to fade. His breaths noticeably slow in pace.
"If you aren't their heart, then they must be yours, captain," she says quietly.
Steve nods at that. He can't bring his head up to look at her. He's too tired.
"Do you love them, captain?"
Steve feels the word love surge up his spine, an unnameable force lending him the strength to look at them in the eye. To see Natasha's red hair and Bruce's tan skin. To remember waking up and seeing them every morning.
"Completely."
She hums at that. "Well," she says.
Thor falls to his knees, and Tony stares in horror at the tears falling from his crystal blue eyes. Natasha's features have descended into slack terror. Clint's knuckles are white where they are gripped in his hair. Bruce is moaning against the hand pressed against his mouth, and Tony hears his no, no, no hit every one of them like tidal waves.
Tony screams and rattles the bars. Sobs start to shake down his body, unravel his insides. Steve's wrong. He's so fucking wrong. He's so fucking wrong wrong wrong.
She presses the barrel of the gun against Steve's heart. "How much are you willing to give, Captain?" she asks.
Click.
"Everything," Steve says.
Well, this came out of nowhere, to be honest.
No sequel for this one, guys. It exists as is.
Feel free to review, though. I mean, if you really want.