A/N: Understandably so, there is not much happiness surrounding these next few chapters. Thank you so much for sticking with this story, I'm sorry to everyone for waiting so long to update! I have been overworked like crazy and also lost all motivation to write any of the wips I have. I also knew it was a bad idea to start 2 new fics before finishing this one… so I will try my best to start a decently regular schedule.
JanaDowneyEvans- that's the feeling I was going for, sorry! …and I am so sorry I left you hanging for so long! I hope you're still there and I hope you like this next chapter!
May 29, 2018 (STEVE'S POV)
I walked into one of the guest rooms to see Maddi in bed, but she wasn't sleeping. None of us were really sleeping much, but Maddi had been the worst. I was worried her body would give out with how much she was putting it through. It became clear that it was coming close to that point. The skin around her eyes were dark and hollow, she was thinning out from lack of food. Her hair was matted and dirty, I knew she hadn't showered yet since we got home. She didn't leave the guest room much at all. Our own room had photos of Margaret, and the living room had some of her toys. Margaret's room remained completely untouched, and we kept the door closed because it was too painful to even look inside.
"We have to get her back," Maddi said after a few moments of me being in the room. It was barely above a whisper, but It was so quiet in there and so surprising to hear her say anything at all that I jumped.
"Maddi," I started, worried about giving her false hope.
"Steve, I can't…" she said as she choked back tears. "I can't just accept that she's gone. I can't. The stones are what took them away, they could bring them back too."
"We don't even know where he is," I said as I tried to hide my own pain in my voice.
"Then we search until we find him, until we find those stones. I'm not giving up on my baby, we're getting her back."
I sat next to her on the bed and ran my hand gently over her hair. I nodded slightly and said "okay, but you need to get some rest, please."
She nodded in return but I knew she wouldn't be able to anyway. It was a little hypocritical for me to ask her to rest, but I was more worried for her health than my own. She finished the fight in Wakanda with bruises all over her body. They healed by the end of the day, but that never used to happen after fights. After we got home, I asked her about it. She told me that just like her ability to get pregnant came from her fading powers, that extended to her healing ones too. She still healed faster than normal, but it wasn't as fast as before. I was upset that she hadn't told me earlier, but I didn't say anything because it wasn't the time to be upset with each other.
June 10, 2018 (STEVE'S POV)
"You're just trying to make it all kinds of confusing for Margaret when you see her again, huh?" Maddi said with attempted humor in her voice as she stood in the doorway of the bathroom as I finished up shaving. I glanced at her behind me through the mirror and gave her a sad attempt at a smile.
"I figured she'll be more used to this from all your pictures and videos," I said.
"I kinda liked the beard, it was a good look."
I grabbed her hand as she walked up next to me. "Maybe I'll grow it back some time." Before she could say anything else, the room began to slightly shake, indicating something was showing up outside the compound. We gave each other a concerned look before heading out the door. I grabbed a shirt to throw on as we left. Soon when we got outside with the others in the compound, we all had the same hope in our eyes.
Carol Danvers had shown up at the compound when the pager Fury left stopped beeping. Once we got over the shock of who she was and how her powers worked, we tried to get her to find Tony for us. We had signals from him of messages sent to Pepper, but we weren't able to track them until we had Carol's help.
Now with Carol bringing in a ship to the compound, we were hopeful that Tony was alive inside. Maddi walked up to Pepper, who had her eyes glued onto the ship, and squeezed her hand in support.
Soon the ship was on the ground and Tony was being helped out. I ran up to find him skinny and frail, a symptom of running out of food and water in space. I held onto him as we met at the bottom of the stairs. "Couldn't stop him," he said.
"Neither could I."
"Hang on," he stopped and turned towards me. "I lost the kid."
I was sure my face matched his despair as I salad "Tony we lost."
"Is uh…" he began but then was interrupted by Pepper approaching.
"Oh my god," she exclaimed as she brought him into a hug.
"It's okay," Tony told her. I looked over to see Maddi hesitating a few feet back. She had tears in her eyes as they were locked onto Tony. As they turned to go back inside, Tony's eyes met Maddi's. They walked a few steps closer to each other and Maddi gave him the saddest smile.
"I'm sorry," she stated simply.
"Is…" Tony started with worry. "Is Margaret?" Maddi let out a sob as she roughly shook her head in distraught. Tony let out a breath of pain at her reveal. I put my hand on Maddi's back, trying myself to keep my emotions at bay in order to support her. It had been that way since Wakanda. I didn't let myself feel the full pain of losing our daughter because I had to keep it together for Maddi. I had to make sure she was okay first while the weight crushed my chest.
Maddi wrapped her arms around Tony, and I could tell she was being gentle with him, redeveloping those motherly affections towards him. After all, Tony was her kid too, and so she made her priority taking care of him.
We all made our way inside, getting Tony fluids quickly through an IV, and then sitting around the table to discuss our next move.
"It's been 23 days since Thanos came to Earth," Rhodey stated as we looked through the list of people we knew were gone.
"World governments are in pieces, the parts that are still working are trying to take a census and it looks like he did…" Natasha spoke softly. "He did exactly what he set out to do. Thanos wiped out 50% of all living creatures."
I leaned against the table behind me and glanced towards Maddi as she looked down at her hands in her lap.
"Where is he now?" Tony asked.
"We don't know," I admitted. "He just opened up a portal and walked through." I shook my head at the whole thing. Without the horror of it all, I might have been fascinated by the magic. But all of that didn't matter anymore.
"What's wrong with him?" Tony asked. Rocket explained, making himself more known to Tony. His reaction to a talking racoon was as expected, cracking a joke along the way. I shook my head, recognizing once again how weird it was that things were so easily acceptable to me.
"We've been hunting Thanos for weeks now. Deep space scans and satellites, and we got nothing," I told Tony. I thought for a moment before continuing "Tony you fought him, did-"
"Who told you that?" He cut me off. "I didn't fight him. He wiped my face with a planet while the Bleeker Street magician gave away the store. That's what happened. There was no fight." his irritation was evident.
"Okay," I sympathized with his frustration. It felt like it was too easy for Thanos to just wipe us out like he did in Wakanda.
"He's unbeatable."
"Did he give you any clues, any coordinates, anything?" I tried.
"Pfff," Tony huffed and I sighed. "I saw this coming a few years back. I had a vision. I didn't wanna believe it. Thought I was dreaming."
"Tony, I'm gonna need you to focus," I said.
"And I needed you," he snapped, causing Maddi to finally look up, pain across her face. "As in past tense. That trumps what you need. It's too late buddy. Sorry."
You know what I need?" He stood up suddenly, causing his bowl to clatter has he pushed it away. Maddi jumped in her seat at the loud noise. "I need to shave. And I believe I remember telling all you what we needed was a suit of armor around the world! Remember that? Whether it impacted our precious freedoms or not- that's what we needed!"
"Tony," Maddi finally voiced, but at just a whisper. I wasn't even sure the others in the room could hear her. I stared at her for a second, and I could tell she was getting upset by Tony's reaction.
"Well, that didn't work out, did it?" I said, my own irritation getting in the way. I knew things had been messed up between us all, my decisions had led me to missing out on almost two years of my daughter's life. Now she wasn't even there anymore, I didn't need any more pain thrown my way while I was holding back on everything else I was feeling. I was trying to focus on our next step.
"I said, 'we'd lose'. You said, 'We'll do that together too.' And guess what, Cap? We lost. And you weren't there."
"Tony," Maddi said louder this time. Tears were in her eyes now.
"Maddi if you're gonna guilt me with some logic right now, I don't think I can handle it," he said, not even facing her as he spoke. "But that's what we do, right? Our best work after the fact? We're the Avengers, we're the Avengers. Not the Prevengers."
"Okay," Rhodey tried to get him to sit back down. "You made your point. Just sit down."
"Nah, nah. Here's my point. You know what? She's great, by the way," he pointed to Carol. "We need you. You're new blood. Bunch of tired old mules!" he walked straight towards me and whispered in nothing but anger and hate. "I got nothing for you, Cap! I got no coordinates, no clues, no strategies, no options. Zero. Zip. Nada. No trust. Liar." His words felt like a punch in the gut, but I couldn't argue with him. He only said what I felt in my heart anyway. I failed him, failed the entire world. I failed my wife and most importantly I failed my daughter. The sweet little girl who was showing me her stuffed animals for the first time just hours before I found out I might never see her again.
"We tried!" Maddi cried out, pulling me out of my head and getting Tony's attention. "He was there," she continued as she referred to me. "He tried. And I'm sorry it didn't work. I'm sorry he hurt you when he left. I'm sorry I hurt you when I took his side even when he was gone. I'm sorry." she let out a defeated breath of air and shook her head. "I'm sorry." she repeated and it was clear she was working herself up too much to get anything more coherent out. Before I could go closer to her, Tony turned back towards me, ripped off his Arc Reactor and shoved it into my hand.
"Here, take this. You find him, and you put that on. You hide." He then fell to the ground and I tried to help him.
"Tony!" I exclaimed.
"I'm fine… I…" but he began to lose consciousness before he could say anything else.
"No," I heard a whisper from Maddi as she quickly got up without even wiping her tears, and began to help assess Tony as we took him to a bed to lay down in.
Later when it was clear that he would be okay, just needed rest, food, and water, I spoke with Maddi.
"How do you do that?" I asked her. I was worried to directly approach the topic, not wanting her to lose herself in the pain again.
"Do what?" she asked quietly.
"It's like you turned off a switch back there. When Tony fell, you stopped crying and you helped him."
"How have you been going this long and I still haven't seen you cry about it at all yet?" She asked me instead of answering. I thought for a moment, it was a fair question.
"I'm trying to have hope, crying will make it too real." I wasn't sure if that was the entire answer, but it felt like it was part of it. "And I can't take care of you if I have to take care of myself," I admitted. She nodded her head slowly. I knew that must be how she did it too. She couldn't take care of Tony, who was so sick from dehydration and starvation, while she was wrapped up in her own mind. However, I still found it baffling because if I started letting myself feel it all like she was, I don't think I could stop so quickly. I'd be a mess for a long time.
But then it dawned on me that she probably wasn't feeling it all either. Maddi had always been quick to cry; I never saw it as a weakness, it was just who she was. She had clearly broken down from the initial pain of finding out Margaret had been gone with the rest of everyone else, but since then it had been different. She was missing our daughter, lost without her, but she was also holding onto the same hope I was. And I knew that we had to find Thanos. We had to bring our daughter back. If we didn't, then she probably would eventually feel it all, and I wasn't sure I'd be able to bring her back from it. I wasn't sure I'd be able to come back from it either.