Necessary Risks
The building shivered.
Collateral damage in the latest battle between the Avengers and Dr. Doom, the apartment building had been hit by a missile, a parting shot to distract the Avengers while Doom made his getaway. The damage to its ground floor had destabilized the structure while making it impossible for the residents to escape through the main entrance. The Avengers — minus Thor and Hulk, plus Falcon and Winter Soldier — were working hard to get everyone out of the building, which would collapse in less than 10 minutes, according to Jarvis.
"Hurry!" Iron Man shouted over the comms. "Everybody out. This building's gonna go in five minutes!"
Two women were waving frantically from a top floor window, shouting something Tony couldn't hear. He plucked them out and zoomed away.
"No!" one of the women screamed, twisting in hiss arm as if to escape, though Iron Man was still six stories up.
"Are you crazy! Cut it out!" Tony snapped, gripping her so tightly she had no breath to scream.
Iron Man set his passengers in the street a block away from the trembling building. One woman sank down breathless on the curb, but the screaming woman immediately began to run back.
"Hey, no!" Iron Man ordered. He flew around to block her path as Natasha and Clint shepherded a group of evacuees to the meeting point.
"Watch this one," Tony said. "She's crazy."
The woman beat her fists against his gold titanium chest. "My son! My son's still in there! I've been trying to tell you that, you idiot!"
"Oh."
The woman had gone to borrow milk from her friend on the top floor when the missile hit. Damage to the stairway and loss of power to the elevator prevented her from returning to her eighth-floor apartment to get her six-year-old son.
"Cap, there's still one not accounted for," Natasha reported to Steve Rogers who was still in the building. Black Widow relayed the information about the boy, Benny, and the location of the woman's apartment.
"I'm coming," Tony said, wanting to make amends.
"No, I'm already here," Cap said, as he handed a youngster out a window to an already burdened Falcon, then began to move toward the eighth floor. "The rest of the building is clear. I'll find Benny. You have to be ready to take the building down, Tony."
"Steve," Tony protested.
"Tony, the building has to drop straight down. There's no time to evacuate all the surrounding buildings. You're the only one that can calculate the right place to hit the building to make it drop."
"Steve?" Bucky Barnes' voice came anxiously over the comms. He was walking as quickly as possible down the trembling stairs with a child in each arm and a grandmother clinging to his back.
"I've got this," Steve said confidently. He took long, but gentle strides toward the designated apartment, feeling the building shiver with every step. The stairs on the upper floors had cracked and there were big gaps, but the Super Soldier easily pulled himself hand-over-hand up to the eighth floor.
"Don't get killed, Rogers," Bucky growled. He began taking the stairs three at a time. Grandma eeped and closed her eyes. The children clapped in delight.
Steve paused when he entered the apartment. "Benny?" he called. "Benny, it's Captain America. I've come to take you to your mother."
Cap listened. There was no answer, but over the creaking, complaining building he heard a whimper and tracked it to a bedroom closet.
Opening the door, he found the child sitting on the floor with his arms wrapped around his knees. The tear-stained face looked up and fear transformed into wonder.
"Captain America!" he breathed.
"Come on, Benny." Steve held out his hand and drew the boy to his feet. "We've got to get out. Your mother's worried."
The building shuddered, knocking Cap to one knee.
"Steve, we're out of time!" Tony said frantically.
Cap grabbed a belt from the closet, glad that Benny's father was overweight. He tugged the hood of Benny's sweatshirt into place, boosted the boy to his back, fastened the belt around both their waists and told Benny to hold on tight. The boy clutched the hero's neck in a grip that would have choked anyone but a Super Soldier.
As he moved toward the window, Steve said, "Hit it, Tony."
"Rogers!" Bucky screamed, as he sprinted out the door, carrying his passengers to safety.
"I've got this," Steve said. He went to the window, planning to jump across the street, crashing through a window to safety. He'd done it before. "Do it, Tony!" he ordered, as he ripped the curtains down and smashed the glass out of the apartment window.
But there were no windows across the street. There was a parking garage and he was directly opposite the elevator area. All he could see was a wall of concrete decorated with vertical grooves. There were no windows, no ledges, no place to land within reach of even a Super Soldier's muscles.
"Five seconds," Tony announced.
"It's always the hard way," Steve grumbled, not into the comms.
"Four. Three. Two. One!" As his countdown ended, Tony fired precisely aimed missiles, which hit the base of the apartment building.
The building shook, then began to fall in on itself. Crumbling, crashing in a horrifying masonry maelstrom.
And no one emerged from the wreckage.
"Steve!" "Cap!" Bucky and Sam yelled in identical anguished voices.
Iron Man sank to his knees, covering his helmet with his gauntlets.
Benny's mother screamed. "Murderer! Murderer!" and Tony didn't protest because he felt the same way.
To Be Continued
A/N: I start the New Year with a cliffhanger. How rude!
If you missed it, I posted a standalone Avengers story "Candlelight" on Jan. 1.