One Year Later
"Talia?" Steve pushed through the Wakandan undergrowth, his heart hammering in his chest as his ears rang and the world around him turned into something darker - something desolate. "Talia! Please!"
Desperation clawed at his lungs and burned beneath his skin. He couldn't breathe. He could hardly see.
"Please." A broken sob.
"Steve?" The familiar sound of his best friend's voice - the friend he had seen childhood with, seen war with, seen a new century with - was distant and filled with questions that could not be answered.
As Steve turned, Bucky dropped his weapon and looked to his hand, disintegrating and fading into the nothingness of the universe. His eyes, once the only comfort Steve had known, were the last thing Steve saw as James Buchanan Barnes fell to his knees and dust took his place. He was gone. Like so many others, Bucky was gone.
Steve stopped moving. He stopped breathing. And then he heard it.
"Steve! Oh God, no. Please! Steve?" Her footfall was heavy and fast as she crashed through the bushes and into the disappearing dust beneath her and Steve sagged forwards, grabbing hold of her. He clasped her face in his hands as his eyes ran over the length of her. She was bleeding from her nose and her face was scratched and torn. "You're okay. You're okay." Her words repeated, echoing around in his mind as he clung to her.
"Talia." He sighed her name.
"He - Vision - Thanos, he killed Vision, Steve. Wanda couldn't stop him. And then - and then... Oh God, Steve. She's gone. So many of them are gone."
As Steve's tears fell another thought crashed into Talia, stealing her breath as her hands flew to her stomach.
"The kids. Steve - what if - I can't -" Her chest heaved for breath as she fell into him, relying on him to keep her standing. His fingers moved to his earpiece.
"Pepper?" Fear coursed through his veins as silence crackled over the lines. "Come on Pepper. Please."
"Steve? What's going on Steve?" Pepper's voice fuzzed and popped in the disjointed line but it was there. She was still there. "People are just - Steve what's happening?"
"Where are Jamie and Nathaniel?" He was shaking now.
"They're here, Steve. They're both okay."
As Steve removed his ear-piece, he began to sob. Heaving, broken, devastating sobs.
"They're fine, Talia. They're okay. They're okay."
"Where's Bucky?" Her voice was a whisper. She knew Steve's pain. She knew it like an old cardigan that she had slipped into and wore with him. She knew it in his voice.
As his cries worsened, she dressed herself in her own pain.
They had lost. Together they had fought, and together they had lost. And now the universe had demanded the cost.
*
"Sarg?" Torres span on his heel, staring at where his unit had been just moments before. His sergeant stumbled forwards. "Sergeant, what's happening?"
She looked at her fingers - or where they had been just seconds before - and glanced back to her friend.
"T," her voice shook, betraying her fear as she tried to grab hold of him.
"Ava?" He stared at the empty air before him. Just moments ago he was surrounded by his team, his unit. He was with his friends. He was operating behind enemy lines. And now? Now Torres stood alone and afraid, surrounded by dust that melted into the sand beneath his feet and disappeared from his touch.
The world had gone dark.