CONTENT WARNING: This chapter contains some graphic details that readers may find disturbing. The content begins in the chapter that starts with ****, and will end with another ****. Thank you. -E

Rushing down a long hallway, all three men held up the flashlights on their phones to see in front of them. Even the emergency lights on this floor were off, leaving the underground hall in an eerie darkness. Trying to remember exactly which door was the correct door, Tony cursed under his breath.

"Bruce, remind me to condense this shit to one room," he said offhandedly, "and somewhere easier to get to."

"No kidding," Bruce replied almost timidly. Steve remained silent beside them as they walked quickly through the building. "Wasn't it.. B4-63?" Tony glanced at several of the door plaques illuminated by Bruce's light.

"Something….Like that…" Tony agreed as they passed 58...59…60. They were getting closer.

"Wait!" Steve stopped suddenly, looking at both of them, a strange expression on his face. Tony and Bruce jumped slightly at the noise and turned to look at him incredulously.

"For what? We don't have a lot of time-" Tony began but Steve only cut him off.

"This isn't right, we-" pausing slightly, Steve furrowed his brows together. "I was wrong, we should try and find the others first! They could be hurt!" Blinking in both surprise and confusion, Tony stared at him.

"And we'll be much more help to them in the light than we would in the dark," Tony informed him quickly.

"Weren't you the one who was just agreeing, saying we should get the power back on first?" Bruce asked suspiciously, his tone almost indicating that he was insulted that Steve hadn't backed him up when it mattered.

"No- Yes, but no. I mean," Steve stammered, trying to justify his sudden change of heart. "I mean shouldn't we keep looking for Clint? He could be anywhere and-"

"After we get the lights," Tony stated firmly, glancing at Bruce as he began to walk backwards in the direction of what he hoped was the right door. As he moved backwards, his stomach lurched at the expression that took over Steve's face. In a single instant, his face had gone from almost worried to an extreme expression of hatred and disgust.

"Not that way," Steve spoke harshly, in a voice that seemed oddly distorted from how it should've been. Stumbling slightly backwards in surprise, Tony turned to make a run for the 63rd door, Bruce close behind him. Both of them didn't bother to check if Steve was chasing them: they could hear that he was. Somehow reaching the doorway without being caught, Tony was relieved to see a normal doorknob, thanking himself that not all of them had been electronic doors. Fumbling with the doorknob as Bruce nearly ran into him, he flung the door open and the two clambered inside, shutting and locking it behind them. To their surprise (not only that they had made it into the room with Steve Rogers, super human, running behind them), the hallway outside the door was completely silent. There was no banging to let him in, no sound of footsteps walking or running in the hall, nothing. Making sure the door was locked just in case, Tony made to light up the room with his phone, realizing it was no longer in his hand.

"Shit. I must've dropped my phone out there."

Bruce lit his flashlight again, having turned it off by accident in the hustle. Turning to the newly illuminated room, Tony felt the air in his lungs rush out all at once, immediately feeling sick to his stomach. As if in response to how he felt, he heard Bruce retch off to the side with his phone falling to the floor, covering them in darkness again. After a moment, Tony regained his composure and stooped to grab the phone off of the floor as Bruce continued to be sick. Swallowing a hard lump in his throat, he slowly turned the light back up to face the room.

There, a few feet from them, was Steve, laying on his back with his eyes closed.

****Or, what seemed to be left of Steve, anyway. While Steve had been wearing a t-shirt and shorts, Tony could no longer tell where one began and where one ended, or even the color that they used to be. Covering the majority of his body were deep third-degree burns. Around the edges of the burns, the blackened skin was peeling and flaking away, the insides of the burns raw and still bleeding. In more than one location around his ribs, he could see straight to the fatty tissue layers. Around his hips, he could see bits of bone peeking through the burned tissue. On his arms, he could see tendons through the blackened skin.****

His entire body, though Tony assumed he was dead and knew that meant he would be cold, was still giving off heat. Despite Tony crouching several feet away, his face and arms felt warm. Or, perhaps, that was just from the blood and adrenaline that was now coursing through his body. After a few moments, Bruce was able to steady himself, kneeling next to Tony and not facing the body.

"What... the hell... happened?" Bruce asked shakily and swallowed audibly. At that moment, Steve took a gasping breath, his eyes opening.

"Shit!" Tony nearly yelled as he fell backwards onto his ass, hand tightening around the phone so he wouldn't drop this one, too. Bruce had inhaled so quickly and so harshly that he, too, began to cough, one hand over his chest, the other behind himself on the floor to remain steady. Steve began to cough violently, unable to move. Inching forwards hesitantly, Tony's eyes were wide as he watched blood dribble from Steve's lips. Blinking hard, he felt tears forming. "S...Steve?" Slowly, Steve managed to stop coughing, his eyes unmoving from the ceiling, as though he couldn't move them at all. He drew a raspy breath in before managing to speak.

"K...Kill… Me.." he croaked out, suppressing another coughing fit.

"Wh-" Bruce began before immediately faltering away. Tony was silent for a few moments as the first few tears began to streak down his cheeks.

"I'm sorry," Tony managed to choke out, more tears falling. "I'm so, so sorry. I can't." Steve began to cough again, each one sounding as though fluid was building in his lungs, more blood pooling behind his head from his mouth.

"Then…. Leave m-me… Save…" Steve coughed harder, droplets of blood were beginning to speckle Tony's face and clothes. It was getting increasingly difficult for Steve to get any oxygen in, let alone stop the coughing. "S-save… Team."

"We will," Tony promised him. "We'll find whoever did this and-" The coughing had stopped. Tony's eyes flicked from Steve's burned and bleeding chest to his face, more tears forming rapidly in the corners of his eyes. Tony knew then that he had passed on. There was a loud sniffle from behind Tony, letting him know that Bruce was still there. After a long few moments, Tony continued, to Bruce this time. "We'll save them. We'll do it for Steve."

Crawling forwards on hand and knee, Bruce came to sit with Tony near the body, putting his hand in Tony's. Tony squeezed it as he looked Bruce in the face. If Bruce looked even half as awful as Tony felt… But they had no time to dwell on it. If they were going to find the others in time… They needed to move. Now.

Exhaling slowly, Tony got to his feet, helping Bruce up in turn. Letting go of his hand, Tony hesitantly moved around the body to the machines across the room.

"Bruce can… Can you hold..?" Tony glanced back at Bruce, avoiding looking at the body between them. There was a moment of recognition in Bruce's eyes as he too moved around the body to come and take the phone from Tony. Turning back towards the machines, Tony looked for the root of the power failure, hoping it wouldn't be too difficult to get it back and running. After a few minutes of looking and trying different levers and buttons, something caught Tony's attention, causing him to stop and stare.

"So, um," he began, scratching the back of his head. "I'm not 100% certain… But I think I figured out why the power went out."

"Really? Can we fix-" Tony gave Bruce's shirt a tug towards him and Bruce stumbled forwards. Bruce followed Tony's stare and put a hand over his mouth. The entire back end of one of the generators had been completely torn apart. The cords were thrashed, as though ripped apart by hand - which would be incredible, seeing as some of them were in bundles that were nearly a foot in diameter. One of the wires sparked, causing the men to flinch back.

"Some of them are still live…" Tony swallowed hard. "This is… This is bad."

"Worse than bad," Bruce refused to take his eyes off of the wire that had sparked as though it could blow up at any second and his staring alone held it at bay.

"We need to evacuate the tower."

"What is it about this situation that seems to make you think that?" Bruce asked, a surprising amount of sarcasm in his voice given the circumstances. "The dark thing in the bedroom? Two people missing? The murder of our friend?" Bruce began rattling off different things that were incredibly wrong before adding quietly, "...lord knows how he even GOT like that in the first place…"

"Bruce-"

"What… What about the fact that Steve had been in the hallway with us before we came in here?" All at once, Tony felt breathless again as there was a soft noise behind the door that sat closed across the room. The pair looked at each other and then down at the body of their friend behind them before turning their attention to the door. Bruce faced his light to the door, his knuckles white as he gripped it so it wouldn't fall again. They stood, motionless and holding their breath, listening as the noise came again, a little louder than before.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.