Steve blinked stupidly, watching the slow rise and fall of the black-haired youth's chest as he slumbered. Collapsing backwards, his shield resting by his side, Steve sat in shock as the embers of the fire sputtered half-heartedly from under the collapsed building, the dim glow baring the dark bruises hidden by the boy's black and white suit.
Stretching a leg out, Steve tapped the boy in the ribs, who groaned in response, rolling over onto his side as he tiredly creaked an eye open.
"What?"
Steve quickly drew his leg back, his eyes widening further.
"Y-you—"
Steve saw the Draugur frown slightly in the orange light, the deep shadows flittered across his creased brow, "I don't look that bad, do I? You look like you've seen a ghost," he wheezed a laugh.
The veteran shook his head, the words caught in his throat. Coughing roughly, Steve gestured towards Danny with a nod of his head.
Craning his head down, Steve watched as Danny awkwardly grasped at the torn shreds of the SHIELD uniform, his eyes unfocused as they stared confusedly at the suit.
Danny jolted up, understanding dawning across his beaten face as he scrambled back out of the captain's reach, wincing with his movements. Crawling back to the opposite wall of the alley, Danny's back thumped heavily against it, sending a shudder racking through his body, his white teeth visibly gritted.
The two stared at each other, the silence progressively becoming heavier.
Steve found his voice, "S-so you're a…"
"Yeah," Danny admitted reluctantly.
Steve licked his chapped lips nervously, "But y-you're also a…"
The Draugur propped himself up comfortably against the wall, "Yep."
"A-and you can…?" The time-traveller motioned at Danny.
"I guess." The boy shrugged.
Steve paused before frowning, "But you're not…"
"Wha—? No way!" Danny wrinkled his nose, disgruntled.
"And you're not going to…"
Danny shook his head fervently.
Leaning back into the bricks behind him, Steve stared at Danny with bewilderment as the boy bit his lip, eyes darting between the destroyed restaurant and back.
"Uh… You're not going to tell anyone this, are you?" Danny asked hesitantly, refusing to look at the older man.
Steve stared blankly, "What? Oh, I guess not," Rubbing the back of his neck, he continued, "So what are you exactly?"
The dark-haired boy shrugged, "Most ghosts call me a halfa."
Another silence cloaked the two in the dim light. Steve watched as Danny frowned, his eyes hooded by shadows. He looked older than his years, which left Steve to wonder how old the 'halfa' actually was.
A groan reached the duos ears as both of their heads swivelling to the smouldering restaurant reflexively. The melancholic mood dissipating in a rush as Steve hopped to his feet, leaving Danny by the wall and dashing over to the collapsed rafters and broken terracotta tiles, "Bruce!"
Bruce coughed and groaned again as Steve leapt over splintered planks of wood and crumbling brick, reaching the source where the voice emerged from. Stamping out a weakly burning fire nearby, the time-traveller heaved an aged beam out of the way as he began to dig Bruce out of the rubble.
Peering into the narrow escape, Steve found a dust-covered Bruce Banner staring back, his hair ruffled and grey with dirt and his clothing in rags.
With a relieved smile, Steve extended an arm down into the hole, grasping the doctor's wrist and easily hauled him up.
Crawling out of the wreckage, Bruce feebly attempted to brush himself off as he cleared his throat, his eyes travelling up and down the streets.
"Was it bad?" Bruce asked, his voice small.
"It could've been worse."
Bruce left it at that, inspecting a laceration on his arm half-heartedly. Steve peered through the deep shadows in search of Danny, only to find him gone.
/ / /
Thor glared at the gaping hole in the ceiling of the Basilica where the undead dragon and its cronies had escaped, disappearing with little more than a refraction of light and a howl of revenge.
Dropping Mjölnir with a heavy thunk onto the crushed marble, Thor cracked his neck, feeling slightly disparaged at the less-than-climactic end to the fight.
A whirring sound closed in on him before the sound of scraping metal reached his ears. Turning, Thor found a mirthless Tony Stark staring back, his suit blackened with soot and sparks shooting from its joints sporadically.
"Well, that didn't exactly go to plan, did it?" Tony's glanced around the destroyed Basilica.
Thor grunted, looking curiously at a half-crushed face of a saint, "Where is the man-child that came with you?"
"Er, who?" Tony asked distractedly, pulling off his helmet and poking at it sadly.
Crunching footsteps reached Thor and Tony, "He means that intern you kicked out of the plane, Stark." Natasha answered sullenly, her uniform covered in dust and her hair in disarray.
Clint was only steps behind her, both his appearance and disposition matching his partner's.
Tony clicked his tongue in recognition, cheerily spinning on his heel, "Yo, Dan-Dan!" He called out, boisterously.
Tony's voice echoed off the walls of the Basilica, dying away in the emptiness, leaving only the sound of the Avengers' heaving breaths.
"Danny?" Tony called out louder. Thor watched as the Ironman's brow became creased, his posture becoming rigid the longer the silence lingered.
A squeaky voice emitted from Natasha's ear. Raising a hand and cupping the side of her head, she mumbled something in response before lowering her hand.
"The director wants us to head back to base," She announced to the group, "The Blackhawk's waiting less than a miles from here. Rogers and Banner are there waiting for us. Fury says it's urgent."
Clint nodded, "Good to know that the big guy came to."
Thor frowned, agitated at their lack of worry for the human child, "So we are just going to leave this 'intern' of Stark's behind?"
"My best guess is that he ran the moment his feet touched the ground." Clint joked, hefting his quiver up over his shoulder.
"Or he's dead." Natasha ran a hand through her unkempt hair.
Tony Stark's face scrunched up, "He's not a coward – and he's not weak either," he exclaimed hotly.
Natasha turned her nose up as Clint glowered at the multi-billionaire.
"Let's just go. We have more important things to do." The archer grunted, twisting away from the group and heading towards the main doors.
Natasha seemed more inclined to be helpful, "It's safer if he stays down here anyway; Italy isn't too far. SHIELD is no place to drag kids along to like some sort of field-trip."
Tony shifted from foot to foot, craning his neck to look over piles of crushed stone and wood, "I guess," he relented with a sigh.
"Are you in need of assistance in finding this intern of yours, my friend?" Thor asked.
Tony's smirk was tighter than the usual one he wore, "I'm sure he's okay. He's hard to find when he doesn't want to be found. I'm just going to have a quick look around to make sure. I'll catch up."
Thor shrugged, "If you believe that is best." He said, picking up Mjölnir. Casting one final glance at the bleakly smiling Tony, Thor headed down the nave after his two SHIELD companions.
/ / /
Danny dragged himself further into the shadows of the terracotta-topped buildings, panting as he forced himself closer to the border of Rome.
Danny stretched for a handgrip at the top of a staircase, misjudging his steps in the faint glow of the moonlight as he tripped, stumbling down the short stairway and collapsing at it base on his knees with a crack and a yelp.
Groaning forlornly, Danny slumped onto the ground, too tired to move as the night settled around him, the moon a sliver in the vast sky. Rolling on his back, Danny carelessly gazed at the stars, watching as they flickered in the silent night, their radiance bright without any other light to smother them.
Danny sighed tiredly, too beaten and sore to make any effort to move. The tiny points of light were slowly lulling him into unconsciousness as his eyelids fluttered, the want for sleep overcoming him.
A faint whirring met Danny's ears as he began to sink further into oblivion, becoming progressively louder. Curling into himself, Danny attempted to ignore the annoying noise as it crept closer, drilling into his mind and making it impossible for him to achieve any form of rest.
The thrumming sound was incessant, forcing the halfa to squint his eyes open at the star-lit sky above spitefully. Nothing was out of place in the cool night air, leaving Danny to blink confusedly.
Pushing himself into a seated position as the whirring beared down on him, Danny searched around wildly into the pitch black, forcing himself to focus on where the sound was emerging from, all need for sleep lost under the possible threat of danger. The sound seemed strangely familiar, yet the halfa couldn't put his finger on where he'd heard it.
Widening his eyes in recognition, Danny whipped his head up, staring at the glinting sky with a frown. A dark shadow passed over his line of sight, the black outline of a helicopter flew over his head as the rotor continued to beat its course loudly through the night air, a small red light blinking conventionally, marking its trail out of Vatican City.
Shoving himself to his feet, Danny chased after the helicopter, adrenaline pulsing through him as he pushed himself to transform. The white rings struggled across his body as he tripped over loose cobblestones, the light flittering hopelessly. Danny didn't stop, rigorously begging for his body to transform as his feet beat a path across the narrow alleys, before his ghost powers finally relented, allowing Danny to be consumed by them as he kicked off the ground, his legs morphing into one in his hurry to follow the armoured chopper.
Racing above the buildings, Danny began to feel sweat form on his brow as he struggled to keep his stability, wobbling with the effort to maintain his transformation. Flying after the helicopter, the half-ghost felt his eyes watering as the wind whipped furiously into them, his stark-white hair pulled back off his face. Reaching a hand out, Danny grappled at the air, frantically reaching for one of the landing wheels barely visible above his head, his fingertips glancing over the cold metal and rubber.
Stretching out again, Danny felt his fingers slide across the axle, grasping at the rod desperately as his body dragging behind him under the pressure of the air current, his shoulder ramming into the helicopter's tail boom.
Danny's other hand clasped the axle as he hauled himself forward, fumbling in the dark as he dragged a leg up over the thick camouflaged plates covering the body of the chopper to straddle the tail. His palms slithering across the smooth metal armour as he felt himself slip down the length, the combating wind from the main and tail rotor leaving the halfa panting under the strain to press forward, as he dragged his body up the length of the helicopter.
Clinging to any handholds he could find, Danny yanked himself closer to the cabin. The young half-ghost's throat was parched from the dry wind being forced down his throat as he struggled to keep his eyes open against the violent winds.
Stretching out again hopelessly, Danny's hand collided with glass, his sweating palm creating suction against the cool glass. Danny smiled wearily as his other hand joined its partner to grip the lip of the window, his feet finding hold on a gun platform as he shuffled his way across, the windows blacked-out with a reflective sheen.
Gathering his balance, the halfa pressed against the glass with a shaky hand, his fingertips struggling to slide through the mirrored material. With a mournful groan, Danny pulled his arm out, recognising that his adrenaline had mostly dissipated long ago as he drew back, unable the merge through to the interior of the helicopter in his state of exhaustion.
Danny jumped back in surprise as the door panel was swept aside, leaving Danny to teeter off the edge of the platform before he dropped to his sore knees, grasping at the curved painted plate as panic welled up inside of him.
Glancing up, Danny felt himself choke on his dry tongue as the moon glinted off sturdy silver chain-mail, a red cape billowing behind, painted a deep purple by the night, before a dangerously familiar hammer filled his vision.
Thor towered over Danny as he struggled for balance, "You," the god growled.