Imagine If You Assembled The Avengers: Volume 2

I'll Take It (Rogers x reader)

"You look nervous."

"Not at all," you smiled gently, though not looking his way, "just lost in thought. Nothing worth mentioning."

"Okay...well, great..." Steve mumbled to himself before regaining his focus. "Okay, I've got you with Tony on this. He'll fly you into the hostage zone and get you inside so you can treat any wounded before we try to move them out. The rest of us will have the area cleared by the time you're ready."

"Got it."

Steve nodded in agreement and grabbed his gloves from his pack, slowly slipping each over his hands and securing the straps, every few seconds glancing back at you. He wanted to talk but you didn't want anything to do with it; you were about to go into a hostile area and you needed to keep your focus. Besides, he didn't have anything to say that you cared to hear.

"(Y/N), can we talk about-"

His voice came to an immediate halt when the jet shuddered and rocked violently with the sounds of frantic alarms filling the cabin. Steve struggled to stand and pushed his way forward, tilting with each shift to make his way to Clint at the pilot seat. "What's happening?"

"We took a big hit," Clint struggled, "came outta nowhere." His grip on the controls tightened so much that his veins were bulging from his arms under the tension. They shook with the jet and he struggled to maintain, when finally, the jet sputtered and failed with the engine going eerily silent. "Hang onto something!"

Steve's immediate reaction was to take the seat next to you and strap into the harness, reaching over to make sure yours was secure. He instinctively wrapped his arms around you, pulling you next to him and holding the shield out in front. "Hang on to me, I've got you."

In the span of a few seconds, your mind raced with a million things that you wanted to say. Thousands of unspoken apologies from the years filled your thoughts, and the need to forgive him blindsided you; you didn't know how this would end and you didn't dare chance that you would never get to say it. He had said he was sorry to you more times than you could count over the past months, but you never once offered even a hint of absolution.

Your heartbeat was pounding in your chest, almost painfully now at the thought of finality, and the driving sound filled your hearing. The feeling of his stare on you wasn't subtle, and you had to look. It only took a second for those blue eyes to break you, but as fate would always insist, you opened your mouth to say what you thought you never would just as everything went black in a scraping, crashing, and explosive disaster.

~~~

That's too much blood, your mind screamed at you as you awoke, feeling the hot liquid running down your face and over your arm. The searing heat around you from the fires within the jet fuselage burned your eyes, but you forced them open to see Steve still at your side, barely hearing Tony yelling for Clint while trying to extinguish the flames around you all.

"Steve," you groaned, weakly pulling at your harness to free yourself when you didn't get a reply. The metal of the buckle was crushed and the straps were twisted into an impossible restraint that felt as if it were strangling you. As your vision cleared, you saw your bag just near your feet; stretching as far as you could, even though the pull against your muscles brought a scream from your throat, you managed to hook one of the straps enough to bring it closer. Frantically ripping it open and searching, you found a scissor strong enough to cut the straps away.

"Steve, can you hear me?"

"Yeah. (Y/N), are you okay?" His voice was gravelly and weak, but he was awake, and you breathed a small sigh of relief. Finally having the chance to look, you realized that not all of the blood on your skin was yours; it was his.