"What's going on?!", Phillips' voice echoed as Steve grunted as he was trying to hold things together, "Took control of the Valkyrie; Schmidt was planning to mainly use it on America, trying to reroute it and dump this thing somewhere with no one around!".
He heard Bucky's voice faintly curse, "Ah, I knew he was evil and sick, but this is a bigger level of evil!", as Phillips reported, "We got someone on another radio, with one of our other army bases in Wales, using binoculars, saying that the Valkyrie on the outside is exploding off, since it first got damaged with a crater an hour ago. What the hell happened?!".
"Sabotaged all the way since the first crater, sir! Had to take care of bomber planes that was going to set off and attack Great Britain including Wales, sir!", Steve reported, and faintly heard Peggy's sob of horror and shock as Bucky shouted in horror, "He didn't!", as they knew that their family was in Wales, including Audrey and Marina.
Steve replied, "He did. Heard him ordering his men to load the planes, but luckily, as you know by the crater, I used grenades and shot the men off, destroying those specific planes, sir!", and Phillips cursed, "That damn bastard! Thank you, Rogers...That must have been...You damn saved your family, Rogers, and the rest of us...".
"Not done yet though... this thing still has quite a few more HYDRA members in it somewhere; can't simply leave, they'll probably take back over, and this thing is a beast to bring down...", Steve said.
Phillips replied, "Rogers, don't do what I am thinking right now!", and Steve retorted, "What choice do I have, General?! Every bit of Hydra I don't cut, they come back, and if they take over when I leave for a parachute or something, it goes all over again! I must get this beast down to the last final second where I know that it can't come back from recovering and all, and yet if there's a minuscule miracle of a second where I get out of here with every fiber of my person intact, I would take it, but we all know how this...this is a snowball into hell, and with everything I've been doing, it's looking to be an explosion the size of an atomic bomb which I heard about in theory...especially with the Tesseract I found, and I have a feeling that the powered stuff from the Tesseract will clash with everything I threw into the engines, and putting into power overload as of several minutes ago...which I know your watcher in Wales would be seeing right now, popping like popcorn...".
He heard a deep, slow exhale from Phillips, and Steve sighed deeply, "General...it has been an honor serving you, and you are one of the greatest men I've come to respect...", and Phillips replied, "So do I, Rogers...You want Barnes and Carter?".
Steve replied, "Please, sir...", tears priming at his eyes, but blinked them away as he had to focus, and he heard Bucky's voice, "Stevie-o, you are the most damn stubbornest yet bravest man, and my best friend and brother...If you damn survive somehow of a miracle, I'm going to slap the back of your head for this.".
Steve chuckled wryly, "And I will deserve it, Bucky...I'm sorry that I would miss out on being your best man and making the best cake ever with some of Audrey's female relatives, and everything...You are a good father and a great man in love, Bucky, and don't ever think that you don't deserve Audrey and Marina because you do.".
Bucky chuckled, "Always looking out for me, eh, brother?", and Steve smiled, "You know it, brother...It isn't goodbye...just...you know...it ain't forever...", and Bucky replied, "Yeah...", sounding like he is choking back a knot in his throat, "Here's Peggy...".
"Steve?", Peggy's watery voice replied, and Steve exhaled, replying, "Hey, Peggy...I guess I am in for a whopper of a lecture if I get out miraculously, huh?".
Peggy laughed shortly, "You know it, mister...It's been a whirlwind for both of us, hasn't it?", and Steve smiled, chuckling, "Sure was, and I wouldn't regret a minute of it, not even the embarrassing parts...You know, I was planning for a really good Valentine's Day date...a picnic lunch to the beach in Wales, watching the waves crash, having the radio on for a few songs, dancing, and then a family date with your folks bringing over the kids, with them playing in the sand, and then after the kids get tuckered out to have a nap and taken back home, we have our intimate time on that picnic blanket with the sun setting...".
He heard Peggy chuckling and sighing, "Oh, Steve...That would be so perfect...I was personally planning to make a Valentine's Day breakfast in bed, after what you taught me and everything about cooking...".
Steve laughed warmly, "Oh, that'd be brilliant, Peggy...I'm sure you'd do great, since you're smart and all. After all, I didn't marry you for your cooking, but for you through and through...You are the most amazing woman I'd always love, and that will never chan- Ah!", feeling a knife pieced into one of his shoulders.
He barely heard Peggy's horrified scream, "Steve! What's happening?!", as he turned around, standing up, clutching the knife, to see a horrific sight, a sight he thought he couldn't see again, as he realized that the knife was thrown, stabbing him in the back like the coward his enemy was.
"You can't kill me...", Red Skull muttered; sounding pretty bad as Steve winced as the pain hit him again from the wound as he quickly yanked the knife out.
"You just don't know when to quit...", Steve growled. "And you just don't know when to die!", Red Skull shouted as he began to run.
Steve braced as Red Skull charged at him, and he then narrowed his eyes, watching the weak spots, and then moved into striking and tackling, as Red Skull roared in pain, fighting back as they rolled over and over, landing punches and such.
"You are damn stubborn, American!", Red Skull growled, pressing upon the wounds from the gunshot graze and knife injury, and he screamed in pain, as Red Skull then kicked at his head, jarring him away to the console on the window bay, hearing Peggy's faint horrified voice, "Steve!".
Steve grunted, blinking away the white dots, groaning in pain as Red Skull chuckled, holding the other handgun he stole from Steve's belt, aiming at him, "Ironic that your own gun will kill you, Captain America...Too bad that you're not going to see what I'm going to make your home into my perfect vision...I couldn't help overhearing...You might be a hero, but they will forget you, Captain America, or should I say, Steve? Such an ordinary name for an extraordinary man...Yes, your dear friends and family will suffer...And your wife...My, my, I wonder how she looks like as she must have been quite something to handle your powers...Yes...I am quite curious in discovering and breaking her in bed...I wonder if she will scream for you to save her...".
"Never, you sicko of a bastard! And my husband is more of a man than you!", Peggy's disgusted and fierce voice shouted, and Red Skull replied, "Tsk, tsk, no wonder why you chose an outspoken woman, Captain America. Ah, I will see about that, and at the end, she will be submitted to me, and it will all be your fault.", with a smirk.
Steve narrowed his eyes, "You are sick, Red Skull, but you forget something.", and Red Skull raised an eye ridge, "Oh?", and Steve replied, "When you corner a man who has everything to lose, he has more to fight for, and another thing, no one, and I mean, no one like you won't touch my wife!", with a roar as he sprung out to wrestle the gun away and tackle Red Skull hard.
Once again, the two of them devolved into fighting with their fists as Steve knocked the gun out of reach. A fire had erupted in Steve as he was going to make sure that Red Skull wasn't going to live within the next few minutes and put an end to him once and for all.
After a few minutes, Red Skull got the upper hand and twisted Steve's legs, pinning him, growling as he squeezed Steve's neck, choking him, "No one gets the best of Red Skull and gets away with it! I don't know how you killed Rourke and Sinclair, two of the finest people in Hydra who was gonna have the best wonderful discovery to bring to me, but you were there to start it all, yet I'm going to finish you, so say goodbye, Captain America!", as Steve struggled, trying to push and pull at his arms, starting to black out, and his crystal came into exposure, giving Steve the distraction, feeling that its beloved recipient is dying.
Red Skull saw the crystal, a greedy and curious glint in his eyes, "Ah, so, this is how you survived that factory detonation trap and other places.", loosening his grip on Steve's neck, one of his hands reaching to grasp it, and once he did, the crystal screeched in anger and loyalty, burning Red Skull's hand, causing him to scream out in pain, letting go of the crystal.
Breathing again into fresh air, Steve saw his opportunity, and used his legs to throw Red Skull back, hard and high, crashing through part of the cockpit window, and Steve heard him scream, seeing him scrambling and reaching for any crevice, any piece of cockpit ladder, but with his burned and blackened hand, he wasn't able to grab hold as it caused him pain, while on the way down, with the crevices of the craft, it broke his other arm as he tumbled and fell, going and going, and then hard into the sea like cement.
Red Skull was barely alive, pain all over, bones broken, lungs bruised, etc,, when he heard a very, very loud rumbling growl that vibrated through his body and for the first time, he felt a very big part of fear as he turned to see an unearthly, monstrous machine.
The Levithan had felt disturbances in the sea, hearing orders of the Great Kings to go check it out, and saw the great shadow of the Valkyrie, and circled under it, following it, hearing explosions and such in the air, smelling death and corrupted evil before he saw the cockpit come apart, with a human, no, a grotesque being as he growled, narrowing his electric blue eyes, scanning and chirping its pincers and such at him, and then he snarled, recoiling back in disgust as he was then told of the great evils and the poor, corrupted Tesseract that was constrained by this man, this devil, this monster, especially harming a beloved Atlantean friend, and now he didn't hesitate when the Great Kings told him to kill.
He roared, spitting and firing pure electric Atlantean energy at Red Skull, who screamed in denial, seeing it coming, "I'm a god, no!", bubbles around him as he tried to swim, but it was no use as the beam was beyond wide and far, incinerating him entirely, and then out into the dipping and sagging Valkyrie as the Levithan charged.
The Atlantean energy sparked into the bomber planes and subs of their Tesseract energy, along with black powder for gunner machines and other weapons, causing even bigger explosions, bigger craters, and creating fire to fill into the Valkyrie, approaching slowly to the Tesseract room, while the Valkyrie shook violently, with the remaining Hydra troops and goons trying to get out.
Steve shouted, "Shit!", grabbing the controls to scan the path's route, and narrowed his eyes as Peggy's voice replied, "Steve, what's happening?!".
"The Levithan, he killed Red Skull, but I think he didn't realize his power as he just shot out at the Valkyrie!", Steve reported, "And yes, oh, yes, it worked! The path's overturned! I got to get this out into more of open sea!".
Peggy shouted, "No, please, no! Get yourself out! If it's the Levithan who's angry at Hydra, and it is going to repeat what it did to the Ulysses, you have to get out!", and Steve widened his eyes, realizing that he got five minutes, if this Valkyrie got boilers and of course, the Tesseract room, it's going to be more of that atomic bomb range than just a massive explosion, and he replied, "But I have to make sure that it stays away from land!".
"Then lock it down where it wouldn't sway back to America or England!", Peggy cried out, "Jump the override controls and then lock coordinates or something!", and Steve looked amongst the controls, working quickly as the alarm system went on, "Fires in all floors! Engines burning and smoking! Boilers rising to explode!".
Steve got the lock in for deep sea and then saw a black button when he grazed along the controls, and reading the word under it, he realized that it was ultimate detonation...True, he wished Phillips and the SSR would want a piece of the Valkyrie for research or something, but Hydra would also fight for it, especially the Tesseract, and if they hurt his friends and family in the way of that...no, he won't have it.
"Peggy, I'm going to do something and run like heck for the hills...If I don't survive this, please keep living for our kids...They need you...", Steve replied, and Peggy sobbed, "Steve, no...I...".
Steve pleaded insistently, "Promise me, Peggy!", and Peggy sniffled, whispering, "I promise...I love you, Steven Grant Rogers.".
Steve replied with a small, warm smile, "I love you, Margaret Elizabeth Rogers. Tell Brooke and Ash that I love them so much...This ain't forever, Peggy...I'll always be with you in your heart and our children. For what's worth, my life got fulfilled thanks to our friends, our family, and especially you. You saved me, Peggy, and now it's my turn to save you.", before exhaling with a hitched breath as Peggy's voice replied, "S-Steve, no, don't tu-!", and turned off the radio, pushing the black button, and grabbed his shield, and ran, heading up, as if the fires are blocking the way down and back through the Valkyrie, the only way is up and out.
"Come on... come on...", Steve said to himself as he moved fast as the whole thing was now starting to come down around him. He managed to jump out of planes before, even without a parachute but most of the time they were much lower and not going as fast... not to mention while not being on fire and exploding into pieces. Steve had made it through so much before; he wasn't willing to allow himself to have it all come to an end like this!
He has so much to live for, his friends in America, in Atlantis, and in England, his family of Bucky, Audrey, Peggy, and the little ones. Yes, he's bleeding, wounded, and all, but he isn't going to quit, if he can help it!
The Atlantean energy and the fires got stronger and stronger as it clashed against the sparking and raging Tesseract energy through the Valkyrie, as the explosions become like bigger dominos, with the ultimate detonation sparking up hidden TNT and bigger bombs than the ones powered of the Tesseract in the planes and the subs that exploded as well, reaching to the heart of the Valkyrie, the Tesseract itself.
Steve breached the upside hutch, thinking furiously as he saw numerous upside torpedo bays, realizing if Phillips had done the other plan, the Allies would have been battling those torpedo guns and such, and they would have lost more lives, and as he ran, the dominos of the explosions built up higher and higher, detonating some of the torpedo bays, sending shrapnel and such at Steve as he tried to dodge and all, trying to use his shield, but with the torpedo bays on either side of him, it was enough to injury him even further while trying to watch all sides, unrealizing that the Tesseract room is being breached by the explosions from the crater he had made during the first battle with Red Skull.
Steve needed to figure out an escape, and within the next few seconds or he knew for sure he wasn't going to have any chance of survival; super soldier or not, even he had his limits.
Then he realized that the torpedo bays are like tanks, and since his shield stood up to a tank cannonball, he should use one of the torpedo cannons quickly before they detonate in one of the still igniting ones as it's fucking similar if stronger than a tank cannon.
He ran to one of the cracking torpedo bays, and went to push one of the torpedo cannons up from its former position, and then as he heard the mother of all explosions coming, his crystal came on as he jumped, using his shield to protect him, the cannon fired, hitting the shield, knocking his head out as he curled up behind it, rendering him unconscious, with his crystal shielding his body in its familiar Atlantean energy field, as the massive atomic explosion engulfed the Valkyrie, and almost Steve, visible for miles and miles, with few pieces surviving, including the Tesseract, while killing the dying Hydra goons and troopers who were stuck inside the Valkyrie, as the explosion was so bright and incredibly loud and such as it sent Steve far and far, to the Arctic, injured, clothes torn, and such yet supported by the propulsion of the explosion into his shield, unknowing in his battle against the shrapnel of the torpedo bays, it tore his uniform including his belt, unleashing his beloved compass/family picture, shimmering of Atlantean energy, falling from his jump when he went over the cannon.