𝚂𝚠𝚎𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚝 • 𝚂𝚝𝚎𝚟𝚎 𝚁𝚘𝚐𝚎𝚛𝚜

32 • High Water

Time jump.
—

Steve crept open the door to the cockpit, poking his head out just enough to search for Johann Schmidt.

He stepped forward cautiously, taking note of a blue, glowing reactor in the middle of the room, before stepping quietly over to the pilot seat.

As soon as Steve realised that there was no one in the chair, he heard the sound of a weapon firing up. He quickly turned around, and some sort of god knows what was blasted from the bazooka-esque machine in Johann's hands.

"You don't give up, do you?" The red man called.

"Nope!"

Steve ran towards Johann, avoiding or blocking the blasts with his shield before smacking it over his head.

Johann was strong, much stronger than Steve anticipated. He managed to get a good hold around his neck, putting him in a choke hold and pulling him backwards, but Johann flipped Steve over the reactor.

As the pair scrambled to their feet, Steve grabbed his previously discarded shield and started smacking Red Skull with it. Johann attempted to grab the shield but was launched backwards onto the control panel, and then suddenly they were falling.

Gravity became confusing as the two men tousled in the sky, kicking and punching each other while neither of them would land where the other intended.

Johann found his way back to the control panel and brought the plane back up right while Steve fell and landed on a metal grate.

That familiar weapon sound firing up and Johann pointed a gun in Steve's direction, who was completely shieldless. "You could have had the power of the gods!" He cried, shooting and missing Steve. "Yet you wear a flag across your chest and think you fight a battle of nations!" Another shot.

Steve was slowly making his way left, careful to avoid each shot of the mysterious weapon. He couldn't help but, for the first time in a long time, feel small. How he wished he could curl up and hide under his desk like he used to, or be wrapped in his mothers arms for comfort.

"I have seen the future, Captain! There are no flags!"

Steve ducked. "Not my future!"

He lunged for his shield, tucking and rolling while scooping it up, just in time for it to deflect a shot coming his way.

Thinking impulsively, Steve threw his shield, hitting Johann in the abdomen and throwing him backwards into the reactor.

A strange blue haze lit up the surrounding area, and a small cube of the same colour dislodged itself from Johann's odd machine.

"What have you done?" Johann gasped, grabbing the blue cube with his hand.

Steve watched as Red Skull inspected the cube, and then that familiar blue haze started to erupt from it, this time filling up the ceiling and turning it into a galaxy, full of stars and nebulas.

Steve parted his mouth in shock at what he was seeing. It looked to be, what he could only imagine, as outer space. Sure, he'd seen photos but they were all black and white, and very fuzzy. This was clear as day, like he could reach out and actually touch it.

What the fuck?

The blue haze only got stronger, but what Steve saw when he diverted his fave back to Johann, was behind his wildest dreams.

His hand was melting on the cube, or disintegrating. Red skin and blue fumes made purple, which could almost be considered pretty if it wasn't for Johanns screams of agony as he burnt alive.