Saving Steve (Steve Rogers x Reader)

Chapter 60 - One Shot

The world is shaking, filling your head with a buzzing akin to a bug in a light zapper. You're stuck. Immobile. The vibrations all around make it difficult to catch air in your lungs. And your eyes are heavy. No, your entire body is heavy. As if stuck in quicksand.

"WE HAVE TO GO BACK!"

"Sit down and shut up, Steve, we can't go back!"

Panicked voices from far away. Too far away. It doesn't make sense. You can hear their words so clearly, but the voices themselves are faint. Echoing as if in an empty chamber. 

"I won't leave him, Romanoff."

Steve?

Weak whispers of familiarity send a rush of adrenaline through your body, combating the sluggishness in your veins. 

"St...Steve," you croak, a throbbing pain in your head threatening to black your vision once more.

"Y/n?"

Warm hands on your back help you to sit up. You're leaning against something hard and cold. But the vibrations don't stop. They rattle your ribs in your chest, as if each bone was made of glass.

"Wh-what happened?" you stammer, fighting to open your eyes. Each second that passes seems to make it easier to think, but it's taking longer than it should for you to orient yourself. 

The warm hands on your back suddenly disappear, and you nearly lose balance once more as you realize they had been steadying you. You press yourself firmly up against the metal behind you to keep from swaying, blinking roughly several times as the world starts to come into view - cold, grey walls. And chairs. Six of them, three on each side. Nat's white hair at the front, her back to you. 

The windows. Clouds. 

The jet?

"We made it?" you ask weakly, searching for Steve. 

"Not all of us," he says from somewhere nearby, his voice taught. Tense. Angry. 

You turn to look over your shoulder. Steve stands away from you in the back of the quinjet on the ramp, holding onto the rigging on the side of the flier. Your face pales as the blood leaves your cheeks. 

Suddenly more alert than you have been since waking, you glance about the jet. "Bucky," you whisper, looking up in horror at Steve. "Th-they...they got Bucky?" Steve's jaw constricts as his hand clenches into a fist. 

He won't look at you. 

"Steve...what happened?" you ask.

But Steve doesn't answer. His nostrils flare as his upper lip twitches.

"I rigged their helicopter." 

You turn to find the voice at the front of the jet. Natasha reaches across the control panel, hitting a few buttons before standing from her chair and walking back towards you and Steve, sitting in once of the seats across from you. 

"We had one chance to get out of there. And we wouldn't have made it far with a military attack helicopter coming after us," she says quietly, arms crossed. "I set up a few charges on a timer. I don't know why, but it blew thirty seconds too early."

You wince, reaching up to your head and finding a sticky mess. Pulling your hand away you find your fingers covered in blood.

"You're fine," says Natasha, seeing the horrified look on your face. "It's not yours."

"Not mine?" you ask, your eyes widening.

"That blonde guy - the one helping Steve carry Bucky," she says. "The two of you went flying. He got hit by something. A piece of shrapnel. Looked like a broken nose. You landed together and he bled on you. You're not broken, but you might have a concussion."