Draw Me Your Worries | S. Rogers x Reader

Ch. 20 - The Snap

Steve helped Vision stand up again to try and get him out of there. "I thought I told you to go."

Vision gave him a pointed look. "We don't trade lives, Captain."

Wanda showed up to make sure Vision was alright and to protect him from more threats. Somewhere during all the fighting, Steve had lost the shield on his right arm.

Then, there was a type of stillness that almost sent chills down Steve's spine. Vision told them that he was here. Thanos.

"Everyone, on my position. We have incoming," he ordered on comms.

A blue cloud appeared in the middle of the tree line, and out of it stepped a huge light purple alien that had a gold gauntlet on his left hand. Colored stones covered the knuckles.

"Cap, that's him," Bruce confirmed.

Steve activated his shield. There was no time to say anything else other than, "Eyes up, stay sharp."

Thanos took them all out using either the stones or his bare fists. When Steve came to again, he saw Thanos heading straight for Vision, who was on his knees as Wanda was destroying the stone in his forehead with her powers.

Steve went after him again, sliding to avoid getting punched. He got a couple of hits in on his knee, arm, and jaw before Thanos tried reaching for him with the gauntlet.

He caught Thanos' one hand in each of his own, not letting him use the stones. He used all of his strength as Thanos kept pushing, and eventually he used his other fist to punch him right in the temple, knocking him out cold.

When Steve woke up for the second time, he didn't see Thanos anywhere. Vision was dead, Wanda was down, and Thor was looking at his ax as it lay on the ground covered in what looked like alien blood.

He came up to Thor, holding his side and panting. "Where'd he go?" He looked around once, panicking inside. "Thor. Where'd he go?"

In the midst of his panic, he heard Bucky call out from behind him, "Steve?"

He turned around in time to see Bucky falling headfirst. But before he hit the ground, he quickly turned to dust, leaving his gun to clatter in the dirt.

Not even a gasp escaped his lips as he approached the space that Bucky used to take up. What was going on? He looked to Thor for something, an explanation, a plan, or something, but all he saw was shock.

Steve reached out and touched the dust. Bucky, his pal, his best friend, his brother, was dead.

People were disappearing left and right, turning into lifeless dust. Did Thanos fulfill his promise? Did he really make half of all life in the universe, including on their precious planet Earth, completely disappear? Then he realized.

No.

No.

"Daffodil."

He started sprinting back towards the palace. "Wait, Steve!"

He didn't listen to the voices behind him pleading with him to come back so that they could think about what just happened. He didn't care. Nothing else mattered because it may already be too late.

He burst into the lab, finding broken glass and multiple bodies of the Wakandan guards. Oh, God. What if that alien had gotten to her before the snap could?

He had just got her back, he had just gotten them both back.

"Daffodil!?" he called in desperation. "Y/n!?"

He was met with silence other than the crunching of broken glass under his boots. He looked around the floor of the lab, and quickly found what he was looking for.

Two distinct piles of dust were spread around the floor. Shuri had weapons on her forearms, so she was easy to identify.

And then the other spread of dust... that his daffodil, who had died all alone.

Steve collapsed to his knees. No. She didn't make it. It was a 50/50 shot and she didn't make it.

If only he had fought harder. Maybe Thanos wouldn't have been able to snap his fingers and kill billions of people. Maybe she'd still be here comforting him and he, her.

His fingers found her, moving through the gray dust and subconsciously spreading it on his fingertips. He wished that he had more time with her. His chest ached with the pain, confusion, and utter hopelessness he felt inside. He had failed at his one job to keep the world safe. He should have been better.

This, this was agony.

Everything she and him had built together physically and emotionally was torn down within a fraction of a second. At the snap of a finger.

~~~~~~~

Will they be endgame?