[A/N sad shit going on here. It's 4am, and I just felt the need to write it all out, before I had a nervous break-down. Oh btw, anyone know what the difference between 'comment' and 'review' is? o.o]

-Major plothole alert. Tony's workshop had been destroyed together with the tower. Guess where they were last chapter? That's right, the workshop. Apologies, folks. I will try to correct this mistake-

Part 25.

He was supposed to be immortal. I thought I felt bad when we discovered Tony had been taken, and I'm not going to pretend that left me broken, but this felt so much worse. Of course, I cared more for Tony than anyone else (not that there were many people in this time that I cared for), but there was hope of saving him Tony. He hadn't been pronounced dead. Thor most definitely had.

The worst thing being that I felt like Thor's death was my fault.

"I just- I thought he was immortal. The only thing I kept thinking about was 'What if Tony'. I didn't even worry about him. I've never felt guiltier." Pepper reached out and massaged my hand.

"We all thought he was immortal." Natasha supplied, putting some hot choco in front of my face, which was pressed onto the table. "Turns out Asgardians are just able to live for a long time because of some sort of golden apples." She was going for mocking, but she sounded a bit sentimental. "Please stop blaming yourself, Steve. He went willingly. I'm sure, knowing him, he was proud to know that he died trying to save Tony."

"Except he didn't." I gritted out, anger and guilt fighting for dominance.

"How is Jane doing? Is she dealing?" Pepper asked. She and Jane had befriended each other, having a lot in common (Pepper could complain about Tony permanently putting his life on the line, and in turn Jane could spent hours scolding Thor because he had been at a different solar system for too long). Just as Pepper asked it, a red-eyed, wet cheeked and trembling Jane walked into the room. Pepper immediately shoved her chair back to give Jane the biggest tackle-hug in history. I turned around in my chair and looked at her with what I hoped to be a carefully measured amount of pity. The look I got in return was one of immense anger. I recoiled away immediately turning back around and facing Natasha with raised eyebrows. She looked at me questioning, and I waved it off. 'Later' I mouthed.

What I didn't know was that later, would have to wait.

"He was holding something? Why didn't anyone notice this?"

"Well sorry, captain, you were the one squeezing him into your chest, maybe you should have seen it."

"Girls!" Natasha sighed, putting some distance between Clint and me. "We are all devastated about Thor's life having been taken. And we can think about that later. All we have to do now is get to Amsterdam, and save Tony. Before it is too fucking late. We have never been the best of teams. Especially with Thor and Tony missing, we lack the dynamic that once kept us together. But can these shenanigans please wait until we are done? We need to save him Steve. We need to." I hung my head, feeling the frustration slowly ebb away, and I couldn't even remember why I was angry to begin with.

"'m Sorry, Clint."

"Me too." He said, and we shared a brotherly sort of hug in front of a satisfied Natasha.

After actually having accepted the fact that, indeed, Thor wasn't there anymore (we hadn't quite accepted it, and there were lots of talking sessions, psychologist visits and mourning periods we still would have to go through, but we couldn't allow ourselves to be distracted yet) we had Bruce have a go at examining his body. It turned out that Thor's journey that lead to his death hadn't been futile.

No, despite coming back lifeless, the God had managed to retrieve something from Titan. This, presumably, meant that what had caused his death had not been Thanos or his minions, but Tony's machine which would devastate Tony. Knowing him, he would never trust himself again, which sucked.

Anyhow, what Thor had brought back a watch. A watch with 6 slots, one for each gem, or so Natasha said after ordering JARVIS to get every piece of information out there about the infinity gauntlet- and gems. This watch could split all the gems and give them a separate power, so that the powers could be divided over multiple people instead of all being in the hands of one person. Too much power in the hands of one person had always led to wars, and it was up to us to break the tradition of years of war over the gauntlet.

"Steve, you are going to be the one to do it." Natasha told me, handing me the golden watch. "Make sure you don't lose it." When I started to protest, she quickly continued, "I know you lose your keys every other day, Steve. How many times has Tony had to give you a new Stark-pass? Be careful, today isn't the time to leave your keys in your bike and run around like a headless chicken until you find them." I nodded, swallowing my snide comment because I knew she was just making sure I was alert despite knowing that Tony's safety was on the line here.

Even after all the troubles Fury and the team had gone through throughout this thing with Loki, and even though he hadn't been very cooperative up until now, he was willing to lend us one of his planes (which Clint knew how to fly) to save Tony. If I was honest with myself, which I normally was, I thought it was the least he could do after having us figure this all out on our own.

So we were now seated cosily in the plane, Clint flying us towards the main port Schiphol in Amsterdam. It wasn't long (or maybe I was just not willing to admit that I had fallen asleep) before we were flying over a quilt of farmland, which could only mean that we had arrived in the Netherlands. Natasha was lazily pointing out windmills and other Dutch clichés, which I knew was a trait of here when she was trying to hide her nerves. I myself was tapping my foot on the ground impatiently, spandex uniform feeling weird and uncompleted without the shield. I had taken the prototype, had managed to save it from the rumble that used to be the Stark Tower, but it would never match up to the completed shield. I wanted to get there and kick some reindeer ass. As if Natasha felt my misplaced enthusiasm (misplaced because violence is never a good thing), she put a hand in on my leg, stilling my tappings and she looked at me.

"Steve, stay focused on your goal. You are going to have to get those gems, Hulk, Barton and I will take care of Loki. He has had Tony for a month, you don't know what Tony will be like. I want you to pay attention to that later. Don't let your anger for Loki distract you from the task at hand. Please."

"I won't," I said, hopping out of the plane, followed by Clint, Natasha and Bruce (who was wearing old clothes as a precaution). Loki had given us subtle hints of where exactly he was, using his magic to give us a sense of direction towards him.

And even though Natasha had warned me, twice, to stay focused, to not let my anger distract me, and even though I knew nothing good could come from it, the moment we found the right building and walked in to find Loki sitting on a make-shift throne with a wounded Tony kneeling in front of him, there was nothing restraining me from wiping the arrogant grin of Loki's face. It was probably what Loki had planned, to make me furious enough to get this reaction out of me, and I hated myself for falling for it, but I had never felt angrier about anything in my life.

Despite the yells from my team-members, the neutral expression on Loki's face and my own mind's objections, I lunged forward to knock the damn reindeer off his throne.

It was time that this stopped.

[A/N The moment you have all been waiting for is coming soon! SCHOOL IS OVER AND I WILL START UPDATING QUICKER AGAIN!]