Disclaimer: The Avengers, its characters and The Marvel Cinematic Universe belong to Marvel Studios and The Walt Disney Company, among many others. I'm only a fan, writing this for love of this film franchise and personal pleasure.

A.N.: Starting right at the end of A:IW. Time to deal with the Decimation.


To Build a Home

18. Broken Souls

"Oh God…"

The words got dragged out of Steve's throat, his figure sagging almost with the weight of the world ─ no, the weight of the universe on his shoulders as he sat next to Vision's broken, lifeless body. He still couldn't believe it. How Bucky had called out his name, spoken like a bad omen in the sudden, unnatural stillness of the Wakandan forest. How his friend's entire form had simply, impossibly yet irrevocably turned into dust, crumpling down to the forest ground like something out of his worst nightmares. Steve had then turned and looked at Wanda, as she'd been crying over her lover's body, the tears still running down her face as it turned into ash and got swept in the wind. He noticed the same thing happening to that walking tree creature that Thor had introduced to him just a few minutes before in the battlefield. He had heard Okoye's desperate cries for her king, Rhodey's voice calling for Sam then asking what had happened.

They'd lost and the consequences were already upon them, so much worse than he could've ever imagined.

Everyone seemed frozen in place, not quite knowing what to do. Then the momentary spell was almost broken as he heard a soft thud next to him. "Steve," he heard his name said in a shaky, choked out whisper and he turned around to find Natasha collapsed on the floor. For one wild moment he could feel his heart stopping as he thought she was about to turn into dust and vanish before his eyes, but she remained there next to him, her back against a tree, one hand on her stomach and the other shaking against her lips. "I can't ─ I can't breathe…" She said in between gasped attempts to suck in air to her oxygen-deprived lungs as she'd started to hyperventilate, her green eyes wide and silent tears coursing down her face. "I'm not ─ I'm gonna be sick…"

He scrambled to his knees and slid closer to her, his arms reaching out to support her frame as she leaned over and dry heaved on the forest floor, nothing but bile coming past her lips. He felt as sick as she was, but there was nothing in their stomachs to come up. They hadn't eaten since dinner last night. Or was it that morning? They'd been through so many time zones in the last 24 hours that he wasn't sure anymore, but he remembered their last real meal had been right before they'd set out to find Vision and Wanda in Edinburgh.

"It's okay, Nat." He said hoarsely, rubbing soothing circles on her back as she just gasped, choked and cried, her whole figure shaking like a leaf in his arms. "Just try to breathe. I'm here. I got you."

Natasha's sudden collapse had taken the others out of the stupor they'd been falling in just moments before. Rhodey reached out to Okoye, who had walked on shaky legs over to them. As Rhodey talked to the Wakandan General about rallying the troops and tending to the injured, Bruce tried engaging Thor, calling his attention to Thanos's forces that were still active and that needed to be stopped. The God of Thunder's face was grim with determination as he set off flying with his new axe, lightning crackling in his eyes and a promise to swiftly deal with any enemy that was still standing in his way. As Rhodey, Bruce and the talking racoon trudged back towards the battlefield, Okoye seemed to recover herself for a moment as she stepped up to Steve, who was still holding a trembling, gasping Natasha.

"Take her to the palace," the General said gently as she put a hand on his shoulder. "The medical team will see to her. We'll rally the troops and return shortly as well."

The super soldier nodded back at her, a pained look in his eyes. "T'Challa…?"

Okoye's face almost seemed to collapse in on itself before she took a deep breath and somehow kept the tears from falling and gathered a semblance of control again. She didn't trust her voice though, so she only shook her head quickly back at him.

Steve grimaced, swallowed his own grief for the moment and nodded in understanding. As the General walked out after the others, it was just Steve and Natasha sitting on the floor of the eerily silent, luscious Wakandan forest. He took a few deep, steadying breaths of his own as she seemed to recover a normal breathing rate then he pulled them both up to their feet, one arm supporting her frame against him. As her legs were still shaking so much when she tried to stand up on her own, Steve put his other arm under her knees and easily picked her up in his arms despite her feeble protests and he started back towards the palace. For a moment it looked like Natasha was going to continue protesting, but then she just sighed, closed her eyes and leaned her cheek against his chest, losing consciousness and her whole figure sagging in his arms. Seeing this, Steve held her securely against him and hurried back.

The staff at the palace were in a state of panic, as so many people had simply vanished before their eyes and reports kept coming in from all over the place, from the capital city all the way over to their borders. Still, the medical team seemed to recover rather quickly and knew Steve was the King's trusted friend, so they rushed to help them. He was relieved to hear Natasha would be fully recovered in a short while. She'd suffered internal damage from the battle and the combination of internal bleeding, hyperventilation and general dehydration had put a strain on her body before it could heal itself, as it normally would thanks to her super serum, and induced a state of hypovolemic shock, so they gave her fluids and rushed her into surgery.

Hours later, night had fallen when Natasha woke up in a king size bed in one of the palace's guest rooms. Steve had been sitting in a chair beside her, arms crossed over his chest and his feet resting next to her on the bed. He had dozed off sometime before, but he quickly came to as he heard her stirring up. He smiled in relief as he saw her eyes looking back at him and he helped her up to a sitting position against the pillows.

"What happened?" She asked him then with a frown, still getting situated with her new surroundings.

"You went into shock and they rushed you into surgery," he answered at once, a soft look in his eyes as he looked attentively back at her, as if making sure she was really there with him, contrasting against the casual way he then enumerated her many injuries. "You had a nick in your mesenteric artery, a lacerated liver and your spleen was almost shredded to a pulp, but somehow they salvaged it. Oh you also had a couple of broken ribs, but they're mended now."

She merely raised an eyebrow at his words then felt under the hospital gown around her ribs with nimble fingers and checked for marks from the surgery. Natasha had known that Wakandan medicine was way more advanced than the world thought, but this was her first time experiencing a treatment first hand. She was surprised to find no stitch marks or soreness anywhere and that it had only been a couple of hours since she'd been out of surgery.

"What's the word out there?" She asked then, a grim look taking over her face as she already feared what his answer would be.

"It's… not good, Nat." Steve sighed deeply before he continued, leaning his elbows on his knees as he told her all they'd managed to find out so far. "People have simply disappeared in the blink of an eye all over the world, so there have been a lot of accidents and near catastrophes reported in. There's a general sense of panic as most governments are still trying to assess all the damage and organize themselves. Communications are down in some parts of the world, but since Wakanda lived fairly isolated and weren't dependent on others, they got their systems back up quickly enough."

He then told her how the President of the US had survived and that Rhodey was in contact with his team to organize their return back stateside. Secretary Ross had been one of those vanished with the snap of Thanos's fingers, so someone else was being appointed to liaise the DOS with the UN and other foreign agencies, but given what had happened the President himself deemed this a matter of utmost urgency.

"It looks like we might get a full pardon," he told her with a rueful smile and a sardonic, flickering eyebrow. "With everything that's happened, Rhodey says the US just wants to make some show of unity and strength, so nothing better than having the 'mighty Avengers' or whatever's left of us back by their side now." He said, his last words sounding off more bitter than he'd wanted.

She just nodded back at him, still frowning in thought at everything he told her. "Steve," she said, something in her tone of voice conveying the panic that was building up inside of her once more. "Where's your phone? I need to call Clint."

"I already did, as soon as they got you into surgery," he said, grimacing a little. "I talked to him, but…" He trailed off, not knowing what to say, though the look in his blue eyes was enough to let her know what he was trying to tell her.

"Laura? The kids?" She asked him in a whisper, her lips trembling as she felt tears gathering in her eyes once more.

He only shook his head back at her, the pained look in her eyes seeming to cut through his very soul then. "I told him what happened and that we weren't giving up, that we'll find a way to fix this," he said, his voice growing a little stronger with his words then. "But I don't think I got through to him." It had been one of the worst phone calls he'd ever had in his life. Steve had still been reeling, feeling torn between relief that Natasha would be okay and absolutely devastated about everyone else. Then hearing about Clint's family had been another blow. He'd tried to give some measure of comfort to his friend, but he could hear in Clint's voice how something had just seemed to break inside of him and how he didn't really believe him.

Natasha looked up and blinked her eyes a few times, keeping the tears at bay and trying to process everything. Clint and Laura had been her family ever since she'd defected the KGB and had joined SHIELD and tried to straighten out her life. She owed them both so much, Clint for giving her a second chance at a life she wasn't even sure that she'd deserved, and Laura for welcoming her with open arms from the second they'd met, only based on her husband's word. She loved them both and their kids so much. Now this situation was just unimaginable. Not even her worst nightmares ─ and Natasha Romanoff knew something about living nightmares ─ had come close to this.

She shook her head to herself for a moment, took a deep breath in, then focused back on Steve's face. "Okay. What about Fury and Hill?"

"No response," he told her softly. "I'm gathering what I can from the old contacts. I just got word that their vehicle was found abandoned on a road in Dallas. Any idea what they were doing there?"

"No," she shook her head, frowning her eyebrows in thought, a new sense of urgency fueling her on, her body suddenly buzzing with nervous energy. "We need to go there. We need to go back to the compound, assess all the damage ourselves and start working on tracking Thanos, now." She pulled the covers and swung her legs over the edge of the bed.

"Okay, easy there." Steve protested, holding one hand out as he frowned back at her. "You just had surgery."

"I feel fine and I can't stay sitting here anymore," she ignored him and got up to her feet, unmindful of the hospital gown draped loosely over her figure and she started walking aimlessly around the room, looking for her clothes or something else that she could wear so that they could get out of there as fast as possible.

"We're not cleared to go back yet," Steve said, also getting up to his feet and following a few steps behind her. "They're rushing the process, but there's still some red tape to go through and there are other things going on."

The team had also been assisting the Wakandans in whatever way they could, given that both T'Challa and Shuri had vanished away, and the Five Tribes Council had an emergency meeting and agreed that the smoothest action would be to keep the Crown with Queen Ramonda as she'd been more involved with running the country, so now she needed to take on that enormous responsibility in addition to dealing with their collective and her personal sudden loss. M'Baku had agreed to take on the mantle of Black Panther and help her as well by protecting their country.

"Then where the hell is Rhodey?" Natasha countered quickly, not leaving him room to finish his explanations as she found a walk-in closet and proceeded to yank open drawers and wardrobe doors at random, as if hoping any of them would contain her battlesuit and weapons. "If the President is prepared to issue a full pardon, then it shouldn't be this hard."

Steve still followed her and grew frustrated as she didn't want to hear what he had to say. "Goddamn it, Nat! Will you listen to me for once?" He exclaimed suddenly, almost reaching out to grab her by the shoulders as if wanting to shake some sense into her, but at the last moment running a hand haphazardly through his hair instead. "You almost died!"

"Everyone died, Steve!" She rounded back on him and exclaimed in turn. For a moment they just stood there staring at each other, her eyes once more swimming in tears as she breathed heavily and he was frozen in his spot, feeling as if her eyes were burning through him at the same time. "You said we would find a way to fix this. Right?" She said, her voice coming out more evenly now, but just as intensely.

He swallowed hard before nodding resolutely back at her. "Right."

She mirrored his actions, nodding once back at him, a steely glint visible in her green eyes. "Then we need to go."

For another moment, Steve could only look at her, a distant part of his brain marveling at the fact that she was standing there in front of him, looking so much alive with this new resolve, this new fire that was fueling her on. He couldn't help but think back to that one moment he'd thought she would be gone as well and feel extremely grateful that she was still there, keeping him grounded and keeping them moving forward.

"Alright," he nodded firmly back at her. "I'll gather the team."