Avengers: The Nail

Synopsis: The Avengers were Earth's Mightiest Heroes… nothing lasts forever.

Category: Marvel

Category: Action/Adventure/Drama

Rating: PG 13 (T) for violence, strong language, and non-pervasive adult themes.

Author's Notes: This story was inspired by the Elseworlds Graphic Novel Justice League of America: The Nail, Which featured the impact of a world without Superman while letting the reader enjoy stories of the classic JLA doing all the classic JLA stuff. I wanted to give the Avengers of my childhood the same treatment, and this story is the result.

For want of a nail

the shoe was lost,

For want of a shoe

the horse was lost,

For want of a horse

the knight was lost,

For want of a knight

the battle was lost

So it was that a kingdom was lost -

All for the want of a nail

George Herbert (1651)

Prologue:

1945

The cold wind whipped into their face that day as they raced with destiny. Two young men with one purpose: to save the world… again.

"Lets do it!" Captain America yelled as Bucky peeled out.

They tore down the runway with speed that made their lips flap and their eyelids peel back, but they were barely gaining on the aircraft as it made its own way down the tarmac. Their hearts hammered as they saw the wheels rising up off the ground. They both knew that they were running out of runway, and there would only get one chance. As the aircraft finally took off, the runway ended in a cliff that plunged down to the churning waves of the Atlantic Ocean.

Then the world seemed to drop out from under them.

The front tire exploded, and the motorcycle bucked forward like a catapult. Captain America, riding on the back of the bike, was thrown into the air like a piece of rubble fired by a Trebuchet while Bucky tumbled over and over again on the cement. His world became a red haze of pain and confusion until he pitched over the edge of the cliff. To his credit, Bucky grabbed the edge of the cliff as he was hurled off of it, latching onto it with the surprisingly powerful grip one can only seem to summon out of the unrelenting need to survive. It was too late, though. Far too late.

If it had been any other man, he would have fallen to his doom with only a final death cry for the world to remember him by. But this was not any other man. He was Steve Rogers, Captain America, and he had reflexes and athletic ability that had stunned the world again and again. Fast enough to dodge bullets and strong enough to lift cars, he took the momentum of the bicycle crash and added the strength of his own two legs to it with an incredible thrust. Where other men would have cartwheeled though the air, he sailed through it like a red white and blue bullet. He hit the area of the plane between the tailfin and the wings with a teeth-rattling jolt, but his powerful arms secured his grip before he could roll off of it.

"Steve!" Bucky screamed as he saw Captain America soar off into the sky alone. It was all that he could do to hang onto the rocks of the cliff face.

Steve's super soldier serum enhanced mind worked like lightning as he clawed his way up the plane. He had to have faith that Bucky would be fine, because there was nothing that he could do about it. All that he could do was ensure that this plane never reached its destination. It was a drone plane, programmed with a suicide mission to crash into the White House. Even if he destroyed or disabled the bomb the plane could still kill countless people. He cursed the name of Heinrich Zemo as he looked at the wiring, and for a moment the thought crossed his mind to detonate the bomb prematurely… over the ocean where no one would be harmed. He quickly disregarded the idea, because it would amount to suicide. There was still life, and there was still hope.

"Zemo, you bastard… let's see how you like this." Cap snarled, pulling his shield from his back.

On the front of the plane was a propeller, and without it the plane would plunge into the ocean like a rock. It was dangerous, to be sure, but had far better chances of survival than a midair explosion.

Let it explode underwater. Steve thought to himself as he clawed his way toward the propeller with the straps of his shield clenched in his fist.

Bucky Barnes looked on in horror as he scrambled back up onto solid ground. Tears ran down his face as he saw the distant aircraft plunge into the waves below, with a red-white-and blue figure still visible near the cockpit. The explosion was almost blinding as it hit the surface, obviously rigged to explode on contact, and he felt raw emotion being torn from his throat in a single scream.

"STEVE! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" James Buchanan Barnes' cry echoed over the waves, for what seemed to be an eternity.

"This was all we found." The Naval Officer said sadly, handing the star spangled disc to General Donovan "It must have caught an air pocket under its curve or something, because it was floating on the surface near the wreckage."

Donovan looked down at the shield; half of its paint blasted away, and shook his head. Denial and disbelief would not change anything, but he could not believe what had happened today. It had always been in the back of his mind like a possibility, but he had never truly considered it. The man who had died today seemed like so much more than any man could be. He had seemed immortal… but had been all too human in the end. Wild Bill Donovan of the OSS fought back tears. It would do no good for his men to see him in this state. It was bad enough watching Bucky Barnes wrapped in an OD green blanket like a refugee, crying his eyes out with his mask discarded on the ground.

Donovan felt his feet walking toward Sergeant Barnes, and was not surprised when no salute greeted him. That much, at least, his mentor passed on to him.

"What… what happened here Sergeant?" Donovan heard himself say. "What killed Captain America?"

Bucky's mouth opened as if to say something, but then clamped shut with a sniffle. He held up one hand, clenched in a fist. Donovan looked at it for a moment, wondering if it was meant as a threat or a rude gesture. Then Bucky's red gloves fist began to slowly open like the petals of a flower, and revealed what he had been holding onto so tightly. Refusing to let go since he pulled it forth from the front tire of that wrecked motorcycle. Donovan did not know what it was at first, because it was such a small and insignificant thing to have killed such a great hero.

A single, rusty nail.

Next:

Avengers