Disclaimer: I do not own the Avengers. If I did... let's just say I would be rich enough to have other people write disclaimers for me.

Steve groaned as he was pulled back to consciousness, eyelids flickering as eyes began shifting underneath closed lids. His head was pounding, and the inside of his mouth felt as dry as chalk.

There had been a loud bang and a shout as Steve had made a dart across the courtyard. He quickly reached the other side of the courtyard and dove behind one of the large pillars that held up the overhang that covered the far side of the courtyard. To his surprise, he didn't feel a pinch of a dart, or the blinding pain of a bullet, or the heat of a grenade. Sliding to the ground with his back against the gray stone pillar, Steve listened hard—but all he could hear was… nothing.

Most likely he had been drugged. That was pretty much all he could string together as a coherent thought. His limbs felt like they had been tethered to the ground, even though as Steve's eyes slit open in the slightest he could blurrily make out that they had not. Whatever it was, it was something strong enough to knock him down and make him stay there—and for a very long time. How long exactly, he couldn't tell, but judging on how cracked and chapped his lips were, it was fairly long.

His breaths came out in puffs of warm air in front of his face, his slightly spent breaths the only sound he could make out. Other than that—silence. The sound of arrows flying through the air were usually quite silent, but Steve had a feeling that despite her avid protestations, Natasha would join in on taking the snipers down with her pistol.

Even a silenced one made the slightest of noise.

Steve knew that he was lying on his side with his face pressed against the floor. The floor was cold an hard turning half of his face completely numb with chills. If not for his suit, Steve blearily figured he would be much colder—Tony had upgraded nearly all their suits to be ideal for extreme weather conditions. Well, except Thor's—because he didn't really need it and wouldn't (probably very smartly) let Tony anywhere near his suit—and Bruce's because, well, Bruce didn't have a suit.

But still. He was cold. He hated being cold.

Steve, with his shield held close to his chest and his knees drawn up as close to the shield as possible, risked glancing around the pillar and at the courtyard. It seemed empty, silent, snowflakes drifting gently and in small numbers to the snowy ground. Bruce and Thor lay unmoving in the snow, side an occasional tremor of shivering in Bruce's body that Steve could just make out. Tony was still slumped up against the wall, armored head hanging limply down onto his chest. The solider drew back his head and shot his gaze as far as he could to the right, straining his body in attempt to get as close to the edge of the pillar, and could just make out the shapes of Clint and Natasha in the corner directly next to his from his position. Why hadn't they fired? He had heard gunshots, but none quite like Natasha's specialized ones, before—so why hadn't they…

He couldn't even move roll his head off the cold floor so his view of the world wouldn't be so slanted and dizzying. Steve closed his eyes, trying to get through the fog of his brain, and tried to take a long inhale. Even this was a chore, and his shoulder's shuddered and choked on a cough.

When he opened his eyes again, two blue specks barely seen through his half-lidded eyes—the world was swimming and blurry once more.

Worry consumed him. Steve flicked his head back between the stone wall in front of him, and the spot where he could make out the still forms of the two said master assassins. Finally, Steve made up his mind and pulled himself to his feet using the pillar as leverage against his back. Another glance was given towards the still rooftops before Steve took a deep breath hugged the wall to his left shoulder, darting for their spot on the ground.

The room seemed to drop in temperature sharply all of a sudden, the only thing that forced Steve's eyes to flutter back open. He hadn't even realized he had shut them. Cold reminded him of water, cold water, and water of snow. Panic flooded through Steve's sluggish limbs and adrenaline suddenly had him pushing up against the floor on his arms alone and half dragging himself across the floor. Snow reminded Steve of the courtyard—and the courtyard of blood.

So much blood.

No bullet pierced his heart, no pain tore across his limbs, and Steve stumbled to a halt just above his two teammates from their spot in the ever-cold and what should have been white snow. Instead of white, most of it was red—a dark flowing red that made him choke and made his knees buckle in a frantic attempt to get to the ground closer, faster, sooner. Clint was twisted awkwardly against the crumbled stone block, eyes closed, hand clenched around something small and glass and empty; breathing shallow. Natasha laid on her back, her grown-out red curls spread out across the pale snow like a fiery halo, eyes opened and flickering left to right. Her breaths came out in short, sharp gasps, eyes locking with Steve's as he scrambled to her side, as he tore her hands from their spot around her abdomen—from the spot where she was staining her hands a dark red with her own blood.

Steve was half-crawling across the floor. His legs just wouldn't work numb and dead-weight against his desperation to just move. There was a door there, he could see it—the faint outline of light against the steel walls, and he had to get there. He had to get out of this room, out of the cold, and find them. Help them. Steve wasn't quite sure what he needed to help them, no—save them—from, his brain was so fogged and his thoughts far from lucid, much less his reasoning or his memory. It was something important though; he could almost grasp it at the edge of his mind…

…something about wolves…

"Natasha…" he breathed.

She nodded dreamily, as if to say—that's my name.

He could not find words beyond that. What could he say? His mind was blanking, panicking—but it quickly snapped into focus.

He knew what to do, or what he could do—but that was so very little and not enough, not enough—he dropped her hands, gently, very gently, and they automatically curled back towards the gushing hole in her stomach from a bullet so small but so, so, deadly. He pressed his own hands over her own, trying to apply as much pressure as possible without hurting her—oh, god, oh, god—he flinched at her wince of pain. Her face was pale, the tips of her lips the faintest hue of blue, shivering. "It's going to be fine," he told her, surprised at how firm and steady his voice was. "Soon as Stark gets his lazy ass up and off the floor he'll go get help, or he'll take you to the help and you'll be fine, okay? You hear me?—Stark, I know you're awake, so hurry up and get over here—"

"Cold," Natasha said, voice barely above a whisper.

He gave up trying to think of the reason and just moved. Or, he tried to—but already he was exhausted in his very short crawl towards the door. It seemed so far away… and his limbs were trembling, collapsing—his head was growing so heavy.

Steve's heart plummeted. "It's cold only because it's snowing," he said firmly, trying to meet her blue eyes that seemed to be unable to lock with his. "You're not allowed to be cold otherwise. You're not allowed to die," he said steadily, reaching to tear a lower part of his uniform off for cloth. "The Black Widow's not allowed to be taken down by a bullet."

Steve tore a large bit of cloth off his leg, and looked back to Natasha. "You're not allowed to be cold—"

"No," she whispered, or mouthed—he couldn't tell. "Cold to snow…" she was gasping now, barely getting out the word. "Snow to winter…"

Winter to wolves. Steve's arms failed him.

"Wolves…" her head slid slightly to the side, Steve suddenly jolting out of his rapt attention to her and pressing down his palm more firmly across the wound, blood seeping in between the cracks of his fingers. "…pack."

Pack… His head slipped and hit the metal below as his arms crumbled out from underneath him.

"…to leader."

Leader… to…

Natasha reached up and caught his hand gently before it reached her stomach. Her eyes flickered down towards the hand, and her other blood-soaked hand reached up to catch it as well. Steve watched her silently, brokenly, as her mouth cracked open in the slightest and a she said, voice hardly more than a breath of air, "…leader… to…"

Her finger traced over his palm, eyes glazed, from the top right corner, across the palm until it reached the center of the bottom, curling up along the left side, and sloping down along the middle to finish with a curl. Then her hand slipped down his arm and a breath left her lips in a whoosh and her eyes unfocused to a reflection of the ever falling snow.

Leader… to… The door in front of his eyes, slipping shut, opened with a sliding whoosh. From the slanted view that Steve called his eyes, from the tunnel vision the drugs were creating, adapting to his rapid metabolism, Steve could make out dark black shoes walking to stand in front of him, silver cane clasped directly between the two shoes.

His breath left him. He couldn't breathe. Natasha stared past him, forever past time, mouth still slightly open as if the last word on her warning was still on her lips. Steve let go of her hand. Was Barton even breathing beside him?

He couldn't bring himself to look.

But, before there were hands all over him, before the rage overtook him and he was destroying the hands, the dozens of hands, before a mask was shoved across his face and darts pricked his skin and people and dark spots swarmed over him, Steve sat there silently. Unable to breathe.

It was silent.

And he was completely,

and utterly,

alone.

And before Steve allowed the drugs to take him once more, he saw his own hand reached out in front of his face, palm faced towards him—and he saw the faint outline of Natasha's blood, her warning, that she had left on his hand. Top, across, up, across, curl.

Leader to…

α lpha.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Just a Game.

α

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

The next time Steve woke, he was still lying on his side on the metal floor. The floor was still cold, and his palm was still out above his head—but there was no blood, no reference that he got, and no hidden code.

Steve wondered for a moment if it had even been there at all.

Oh, God—Natasha. The thought of her just made him want to curl up in a ball there on the floor and just die. She was dead. Dead. Yet another person he had watched die in front of him, and he could've stopped it too. Somehow—maybe if he had played a little smarter, ran a little faster, tried a little harder—just like Bucky. Maybe if he had listened to her before he had run, they would all still be fighting hard or joking over shwarma or something. Something other than wishing they had killed him instead because he didn't know if he could take another failure, another death, another person he had lost just after getting to know them.

He wished his headache was back, or the blessed gift of a clouded head, so he wouldn't have to think anymore. He wished he could just stop thinking—because, God knows, that only gets people killed.

The rest of them… the rest of the Avengers… were they still alive?

He didn't even know.

He needed to know.

Slowly, the solider sat up. His limbs were still heavy, and his movements still rather sluggish, but his mind was cursedly clear. Glancing around hollowly, he took in the room. It was a sort of hexagon shape, the walls made entirely of some sort of dark gray steel, maybe fifteen feet on each length of the room and ten feet high. There was a door at the wall facing Steve, or, at least, some kind of opening in the wall. He could just make out a faint outline of light streaming in through the cracks that made the outline of the rectangular door.

Unsteadily, Steve pulled himself to his feet, blinking rapidly as the head-rush that followed gave him tunnel vision, and he rather staggered to the door—the effects of the drugs still lingering in his legs. He pressed a hand to the outline of the door, palm up, in some desperate hope that the door would open for him and it would lead out and away out of this nightmare he was living.

The door didn't move.

Steve's shoulders sagged and his forehead thumped against the door.

"Did you really expect that to work?" Came a cool voice.

Steve tensed. He had expected to be confronted by whoever had caused all this eventually, but not this quick. Not this soon. Not in the same room as a very angry, very sad, very drugged up Steve. When the soldier turned, a very stiff, controlled, turn, it was really only the spark of surprise that prevented him from turning, walking up to, and punching the figure in the face. Numerous times.

Steve had noticed the large, hexagonal, metal table in the room. He had noticed two chairs on opposite ends of the table, and he had noticed how carefully the table was positioned in the center of the room. He had not noticed, and was very surprised, to now see a person sitting in one of the chairs adjacent to the first. Steve knew very well that this… man… had not been there before he had turned around to investigate the door, and became reason number two that Steve did not immediately rush to attack the man.

The man sitting in the chair was staring at Steve with a… disdainfully confused look on his face across his folded hands ontop of the metal table-top. He was an older man, no—scratch that—very old man, with wrinkles as numerous as the stars. His hair was a wispy white that was rivaled only by the almost translucent blue paleness of the man's skin. Veins popped out over his arms, starbursts of blue against the white. His eyes were a stone cold black, and they stared critically at Steve as if he was… disappointed.

"I had to try," Steve said after a long moment, once again surprised at how steady his voice was.

"Hm," The man said neutrally.

Another long silence fell, consisting entirely of the man staring, studying Steve, as if waiting for something at their locked gaze. All of a sudden finding the stare challenging, Steve stood a little straighter and locked his jaw, refusing to be the first to look away. He held the man's gaze for nearly a full minute, gritting his teeth and waiting. Finally, a thin smile crossed the man's face, almost a smirk.

"Steve Rogers," He greeted, smile growing almost to a smirk. "How very nice to meet you at last."

Steve stared stonily back.

The man gave a jerk of his head eyebrows, as if to say, as expected, and sighed, lowering his gaze for a moment before returning it. "I suppose you're wondering why you're here."

"Where's my team?" Steve asked, ignoring the bait and taking a step forward, hands clenched at his sides.

The man arched an eyebrow. "You're getting ahead of yourself. Do let me explain."

The solider grit his teeth. "What do you want?"

The man paused, searching for the right word, staring down at a hand and examining it for a moment. Eventually, he said, rather slowly, "…a game."

"A game."

"A game," The man confirmed, raising his eyes again and staring at Steve in what seemed like disinterest. "I play many games, but my most recent, and most favorite in category, had a rather… disappointing ending. So I decided I would find a new game, and a… less resourceful group of players."

"A game," Steve repeated flatly, before continuing humorlessly, "I warn you: I don't know how to play chess well."

The man gave another thin smile, holding what was now revealed and appeared to be a chess-piece up by its head with three of his fingers, staring at it in rather disinterest. "What a shame. You appeared to be the perceptive type. Perhaps I should've chosen Doctor Banner or Miss. Romanoff instead as an opponent instead. Maybe even Mr. Stark, though he doesn't seem to have a good deal of patience—a very essential trait for a long game like this."

A loud roaring sound filled Steve's ears and he closed his eyes, clenching his fists so hard that the nails broke skin and drew blood. Slowly, he opened his eyes again, trying very, very hard not to leap at the man's throat then and there. "I don't think you'll find it very easy to get me to agree to play this game of yours, sir," Steve said through clenched teeth, malice practically oozing out of his last word.

"Hm. Another shame," The man said disappointedly, raising his brow for the briefest of moments. Steve tensed, the man carefully placing the black chess-piece upon the table and sighing. "I don't think your pawns will last very long against mine if no one makes their plays, Mr. Rogers."

Instantly, the walls began to rise into the ceiling, all six except for the one directly behind them—revealing behind their steely exteriors to be fine panels of glass. Behind the five panels of glass came five more rooms, and likewise, five occupants.

Steve felt all the air leave his lungs as he saw them. Thor was kicking a wall frustratedly in the room directly to his left, Stark was irritably pacing in the room next to that—out of his suit, Bruce was sitting quietly against one of the walls in his room directly to Steve's front, Clint was leaning coolly against the right wall in the room beside his, and sitting almost directly to his back against the wall in the room to Steve's was Natasha—looking mildly bored but very much so alive.

The man must have caught Steve staring, because a smile playfully crossed his lips. "Oh, you thought she had died," he said knowingly, smile growing to the faintest of smirks. "That's understandable, I suppose—it was awfully difficult to keep her alive. I made sure, of course, that she didn't—because otherwise I'd have an empty room and that'd just be too much of a bother to find another adequate player you know."

Steve took a step towards the glass walls, eyes wide—before the man rolled his eyes. "Oh, you don't think they can see you, do you? It's called a one-way mirror, I'm not quite sure if you're familiar with the term or not. Basically, one side can see through the mirror like a glass, and the other side sees only their reflection. Quite ingenuous, actually, and useful—after I made some adjustments so you and your… super-serum couldn't break through."

The solider wasn't quite listening at that point, but forced himself to, ignoring the overwhelming sense of relief that had just washed over him—seeing that his whole team was alive and well, which had been more than he had hoped for. Slowly he turned his gaze back to the man, taking a large breath and taking his hand off the glass wall of Clint's room.

"Basically," The man was saying, and the metal walls slowly returned back down onto the floor and covered the glass with resounding thuds, "your objective is to navigate your pawns through a sort of maze that I have created. There are many different paths to the center of the maze, the exit. Each time you send a pawn through a room; there are consequences—both good and bad, but mostly bad. You'll be able to see each pawn's level of physical, mental, and spiritual health, as well as an inventory of their injuries. You'll have to decide which of your pawns is most suited to enter a room, as the defeat of a room might open up paths for other pawns to avoid less than ideal rooms. The game ends when all the players that are still alive reach the center of the maze, or all the pawns die. Those that reach the center shall be released, and you shall be released regardless of the outcome."

Steve tried to take this all in as best as he could, listening silently. Part of his brain was still calculating an escape plan, but the other part was desperately listening to the man's words—trying to grasp all this and learn as much as he could.

"There are more rules, of course," the man continued, reaching down under the table and retrieving a thin book, which he slid across the long metal table in Steve's direction, "which you'll be able to find in there. I'll give you an hour or so to acquaint yourself with them, and then the game will start. Do you understand?"

Reaching out and stopping the sliding book before it slid off the table, Stave stopped it with one hand and was silent for a long moment. "And if I refuse to play?" He asked finally, looking up from the cover of the book and staring at the man in a challenging manner.

The man lifted an eyebrow. "Then all your friends will die very slowly and very painfully in front of your eyes," he said plainly. "And then I'll kill you last."

Steve was silent.

"I'll leave you to study," The man said, standing with two hands soon grasped around a silver cane. Steve watched as he went, one hand still on the book, and the door slid open upwards automatically with a swish as the old man tapped it with the tip of the cane. The man began to leave, and Steve resisted the urge to jump out after him—knowing he couldn't possibly get there in time.

Instead, "Wait."

The man turned.

"Who are you?"

The man paused. "I am many," he said eventually, before his steely gaze locked on Steve's own, "but you may call me Mister Alpha."

And Steve was alone.

You... you people broke my inbox. :'D My inbox has never been that full that quick in my entire life. I wish I could give each of you a bunch of hugs, but instead I just tried to upload as quick as possible because ohmygosh your response was as modivating as it could possibly be.

Anyways. The story. :3 Little less humor in this chapter, and a little more dark plot. I hope you didn't want to kill me when I 'killed' Natasha. This brings up a warning that I don't think I mentioned last chapter. On Character Death... I'm not quite sure if I will kill anyone or not, but be on your toes because it's a very dark story and I very well could-because it's only a fanfiction and the next Avengers movie that character will likely be alive and well. :3

So, I you all got the whole- cold to winter thing I was doing there. I had just watched an older Sherlock Holmes movie (not one with Rober Downey Jr. as Sherlock-but it was decent, if not a bit cheesy) and in one scene Watson asks Holmes how he solved a crime. Sherlock replies that when his boot kicked up some snow and 'burried' his foot, it was like a mental image chain that made him think of the object he was trying to find burried under the soil. So that's the thing I was trying to do there. Something happened to Natasha before Steve got there that made her link a series of pictures to the villian, Mister. Alpha, and she was trying to warn him.

Yes. The shapes Natasha was trying to draw was the α , the greek alphabet letter that is called Alpha.

Lots of Natasha and Steve in this chapter-probably Steve and another character in the next.

NOW I RESPOND TO YOUR REVIEWS. :'3

To Oh you know: You're my first reviewer. You will always have a special place in my heart. :'3 Thank you so much for your review, I'm glad you liked it!
To Miss America of the USA: Thanks! I'm glad you liked it so much! I tried to update ASAP, hope this is a good timing? :3
To The Darkness of Your Fall: Well, if you are hooked-then I must reel you in! I shall put on my fishing hat! Steve's probably my favorite too- though it's so hard to pick! (I was kinda worried about my portrayls of the other characters, so you saying they seemed pretty good was a great feeling xD) Well, I'm glad I'm good with the suspense... bahahaha... because there's tons more to come. :3 Thank you so much for your review!
To Nilly's Issue: :D I'm so glad you liked it. I really love both of your avengers stories, so when I saw you reviewed I was like al;kjgfhgl;a'ohmygod. xD Thank you so much for your review!
To Dalekgirl: Don't worry. I have a next to nothing idea what the purpose of this story is yet as well. xD It's probably just a character study of the Avenger's relations and interactions. xD Or... something... like that... I know Thor's not stupid- he just grew up in a very different culture. xP Steve's just as clueless as he is, pretty much, on Earth and they'll probably have some sort of base for interaction on that. Thanks for your ideas! I, suprisingly, hadn't thought at them. Thank you for your review, and I'm glad you liked the humor! (more of that later, just not... now... xD)

And I think that's all! Thanks to ErisLeaf, live-life-your-way, mfinga19, Miss America of the USA, DevinBourdain, Killed in the crossfire, StarkObsessed, blackdog-lz, The Darkness Of Your Fall, Harkpad, thegraytigress, Frodo1512, Nilly's Issue, petey L, DarkestSight, and fyefan0 for the story alerts! And thanks to live-life-your-way, annual123, StarkObsessed, MercFire, fyefan0, and Smilingeyesandpixiedust for the story favorites! Another thanks to StarkObsessed for the author alert and favorites. :) SO MANY NAMES. It makes me happy. :'3

Until next time!

-Fleet