STEVE'S POV

Twenty-three days. It's been twenty-three days since half of the universe disappeared. Twenty-three days since my entire world fell to ashes.

I set down the razor on the edge of the sink and glance up at myself in the mirror. Without the beard, I look more like the man I used to be. I look more like Captain America.

The thought makes me sigh.

As I stare at my hands gripping the edge of the sink, the razor starts to shake. Then the sink. The mirror. I move quickly, grabbing a shirt to throw on as I run out the bathroom door.

The cool air doesn't bother me at all as I push open the compound doors with Nat, Rhodey, Pietro, and Bruce right behind me. A massive ship lands about a hundred feet in front of us. No, it doesn't land. Carol lowers it to the ground. She found it.

The front hatch slides open to reveal a blue woman I've never seen before. She's supporting a thin man that takes me a minute to recognize as Tony, but when I do, I run up to help my old friend.

His dark eyes find mine, hollow and remorseful. Everything about him is less. He grips my arm tightly and mutters in my ear, "I couldn't stop him."

"Neither could I." There's a moment of silence between the two of us. I haven't seen him in over two years, since our fight in Siberia. We were the reason the Avengers broke up. All of this was our fault.

"I lost the kid."

The kid. He must mean Spider-Man, the one he brought along to Germany. I whisper back, "I lost her."

Tony closes his eyes briefly and rubs his temple. "I'm... I'm so sorry. Is, um...?"

"Oh!" Pepper pulls him into a tight but gentle embrace, and I instantly back off to let them have their moment.

"I'm okay, it's okay." She kisses his cheek before letting me help him again.

Once we're back inside, I realize that Tony has no idea what happened to Earth. All I know is he fought Thanos, too. In as little words as possible, he tells us about teaming up with Stephen Strange, almost dying at the hands of the titan, and watching everyone disintegrate around him. He says all of this in a quiet, monotone voice, and I realize how much losing Peter Parker has broken him.

Maybe he has information. I know he's sick and tired right now. I know I'm grasping for straws at this point, but I don't care. This is past desperation. It's borderline insanity. I need her back.

"It's been twenty-three days since Thanos came to Earth," Rhodes starts. Holographic images appear before us, all of our friends and family who didn't survive. A photo of Mer flashes briefly and I have to turn away.

"World governments are in pieces. The parts that are still working are trying to take a census. And it looks like he did... he did exactly what he said he was gonna do." Natasha nods slowly, resignation on her face. "Thanos wiped out fifty percent of all living creatures."

Tony sighs and gestures at the images. "Where is he now? Where?"

"We don't know," Pietro says from his spot at the table. His gaze hovers on the photo of his twin. "He just opened a portal and walked through."

"What's wrong with him?" He's referencing Thor, who won't stop glaring a hole in the floor.

Rocket says, "oh, he's pissed. He thinks he failed. Which of course he did, but you know there's a lot of that's going around, ain't there?"

"Honestly, until this exact second, I thought you were a Build-A-Bear."

"Maybe I am."

"We've been hunting Thanos for three weeks now," I say. The hopelessness of the situation begins to set in. "Deep Space scans, and satellites, and we got nothing. Tony, you fought him."

"Who told you that?" He asks this as if he didn't just explain everything that happened on Titan. "I didn't fight him. No, he wiped my face with a planet while the Bleecker Street Magician gave away the store. That's what happened. There was no fight."

"Okay," I say, raising my hands in surrender. I'm not in the mood to get into a pointless argument with him. That's where things always go wrong.

"He's unbeatable," he states. I take a deep breath and will my anger to stay in check.

"Did he give you any clues, any coordinates, anything?" I ask, trying to not sound desperate. He chuckles, and Natasha shoots me a warning glare.

"I saw this coming a few years back. I had a vision. I didn't wanna believe it. Thought I was dreaming."

"Tony, I'm gonna need you to focus-"

"And I needed you. As in past tense. That trumps what you need. It's too late buddy. Sorry. You know what I need?" He stands and pushes his cup off of the table, sending it to the floor with a clatter. If my patience is a strong, he keeps fraying it, leading it closer and closer to snapping. "I need to shave. And I believe I remember telling all you-"

"Tony. Tony. Tony," Rhodes says, trying to keep him calm.

"Alive and otherwise what we needed was a suit of armor around the world! Remember that? Whether it impacted our precious freedoms or not- that's what we needed! That's what your wife believed, Rogers. She was a bigger visionary than you'll ever be. Look where your freedom has got us now."

I don't care. I don't care that he's sick. I don't care that he was my friend. I don't care that he's nuts. Anger flashes through me, all of these bottled-up emotions I've kept inside until now, and I start towards him, only stopping because Nat puts a hand on my arm.

"Well, that didn't work out, did it?" I hiss at him.

"I said, 'we'd lose.' You said, 'We'll do that together too.' And guess what, Cap? We lost. And you weren't there. But that's what we do, right? Our best work after the fact? We're the Avengers, we're the Avengers. Not the Prevengers."

I was there. I wasn't on that stupid planet with wizards and space people, but I was here, and I watched all of my friends die. He's so frustrating.

"Okay, you made your point," Rhodes says, trying to get Tony under control and diffuse the tension in the room. "Just sit down."

"Nah, nah. Here's my point. You know what? She's great!" He points to Carol, who only raises her eyebrows at his comment.

"Sit down!"

"We need you. You're new blood. Bunch of tired old mules!" He walks right up to me and gets in my face. I don't try to stop him either. "I got nothing for you, Cap! I got no coordinates, no clues, no strategies, no options. Zero. Zip. Nada. No trust. Liar."

The words sting more than I want to admit.

Tony rips his Arc Reactor off of his chest and places it roughly in my hand. "Here, take this. You find him, and you put that on. You hide." He sinks to his knees.

"Tony!" I get down on the ground next to him.

"I'm fine," he mutters before passing out.

*

"Bruce gave him a sedative," Rhodey says quietly. "He's gonna probably be out for the rest of the day."

I nod. It's probably for the best.

"You guys take care of him. And I'll bring him a Xorrian Elixir when I come back," Carol says. She pushes herself off of the wall and starts for the door.

"Where are you going?" Natasha asks.

"To kill Thanos."

Nat and I share a look of slight panic before we take off after her.

"Hey, you know, we usually work as a team here, and between you and I, morale's a little fragile." Nat tilts her head towards me, which I don't appreciate, but she has a point.

"We realize up there is more your territory, but this is our fight too," I add.

"You even know where he is?" Rhodey asks skeptically. She rolls her eyes at his lack of faith.

"I know people who might."

"Don't bother. I can tell you where Thanos is," a voice from the doorway says. Nebula, the woman who came back with Tony. "Thanos spent a long time trying to... perfect me. And when he worked, he talked about his great plan. Even disassembled, I wanted to please him. I'd ask 'where would we go once his plan was complete?' His answer was always the same: 'To the Garden.'"

"Oh, that's cute," Pietro snickers. "The grape has a retirement plan."

"So where is he?" I ask.

Rocket steps forward. "When Thanos snapped his fingers, Earth became ground zero for a power surge of ridiculously cosmic proportions. No one's ever seen anything like it. Until two days ago."

A new holographic image pops up, one of a planet. A shockwave courses over its surface.

"Thanos is there," Nebula confirms.

Natasha bends to examine the holograph. Her eyes widen. "He used the stones again."

"Hey, hey, hey. We'd be going in short-handed, you know," Bruce says. I can hear the hesitation in his voice, and a few others in the room seem to follow his train of thought.

Rhodey shrugs and says, "look, he's still got the stones."

"So let's get them," Pietro says. He walks to the middle of the room and looks around at us all. "And use them to bring everyone back."

"Just like that?" Rhodey asks.

"Yeah. Just like that," I say with grim determination.

Natasha stands and addresses us, Bruce specifically. "Even if there's a small chance that we can undo this... I mean, we owe it to everyone who's not in this room to try."

"If we do this, how do we know it's gonna end any differently than it did before?" Bruce argues.

"Because before you didn't have me." I glance down at Carol's brash statement. I don't necessarily agree with her, but she's on my side right now. I will do anything for the chance to get everyone back.

Around me, the others have mixed reactions to her boldness.

"Hey, new girl?" Rhodey asks. "Everyone here is about that superhero life. And if you don't mind my asking, where the hell have you been all this time?"

She cocks her head, a minuscule smirk on her face. "There are a lot of other planets in the universe. And unfortunately, they didn't have you guys."

Thor finally puts down his sandwich and joins us. Instead of speaking, he walks right up to Carol and holds out his hand. Stormbreaker flies into his grasp inches away from her face. She doesn't even flinch.

He chuckles and says the first words I've heard from him in days.

"I like this one."

A faint trace of hope rises inside of me. It feels good, and a memory stirs, one from years ago.

"Glad you like the view, Romanoff. It's about to get better." A Helicarrier rises in the afternoon sky. Mer grins at the sight of it, and so do I. "Nice, right? I pulled her out of the mothballs with a couple of old friends. She's dusty, but she'll do."

"Fury, you son of a bitch!" she exclaims. I raise my eyebrows at her word choice, but she's really too cute to reprimand.

"Ooh, you kiss your mother with that mouth?"

"Nope," she says. "I do kiss Steve with it." She takes my face in her hands and kisses me roughly. There's a brief moment where I don't know whether I should pull away or lean in. Natasha laughs lightly behind us as I kiss her harder.

"Let's go get this son of a bitch."

Hey! Sorry it's been a few days, but I've been trying to figure out how I want to proceed with this next part of the book.

I might not write every scene from Endgame in this book just bc it would be basically the same as the movie. There might be some time jumps, FYI.

Anyway, vote and comment! Hope you have a great week!