STEVE

I pilot the quinjet, trying to keep myself quiet. Sam's words echo through my head. He said that they might not make it. He and Tori could be dead for all I know and I'm taking off in the complete opposite direction miles away from them.

I'm still I shock about Natasha. She betrayed Tony and the rest of the people on his side to help us. Why?

"What's gonna happen to your friends?" Bucky asks me, keeping his voice low.

I clench my jaw, sighing. They're all hopefully still out there, but God only knows what's happening there. They probably destroyed the airport even more since Bucky and I left. I'm just hoping nobody's dead.

"Whatever it is, I'll deal with it," I tell Bucky, careful to mask my worry and sadness.

Bucky shakes his head behind me. "I don't know if I'm worth all this, Steve."

I don't know what to say back. I debate on the words, but none seem to fit exactly in the right spots. "W-What you did all those years...i-it wasn't you. You didn't have a choice."

"I know," he replies. "But I did it."

I frown, looking back at the sky ahead of me. The view is way too familiar. It's like when I came here, when I plummeted into the ice. I've met Tori, Tony, the whole gang. I've caught up with Peggy before she died after living a fulfilling life. I've found Bucky, my old friend, who has gone through the same sort of aging as I did. I've been thrown in to this life that I've come to love, but it has finally decided to backfire on me.

•••

TORI

I lean against a wall near Tony in the hospital where Rhodey is being kept. He's being run through a medical scanning device. I'm just thankful that he's alive. I didn't think that he would make it.

My brother seems to be interrogating Vision as they watch Rhodes go through the machine, all of us separated from him by a sheet of glass. Vision looks distraught, like the rest of us. After all, he is the one who caused this.

Tony walks away from him, his jaw clenched. He leads me away to another hallway, leaning against the wall. I stand next to him, searching for at least some happiness in his eyes in short glances.

"Remember when I was hospitalized after the explosion during my first mission working for SHIELD?" I ask him softly, my melancholic voice low.

He nods. "Yeah. You were in a coma for a week."

"You know how you stayed at my bedside until I woke up?" I ask. "I was told that you could barely even function until I finally did."

"That's true," he says. "When I heard that the rest of them died and you had miraculously lived but were hanging on to life by a thread, I panicked. You are the only family I have left. I can still not even bare the thought of you dying.

"When we first met Wanda while on the mission to find Loki's scepter, she showed me something — 'my worst fear,'" he continues, shaking his head at the memory. "I saw the Chitauri, debris, and my entire team dead on the ground. I saw you and....I-I couldn't take it. You weren't breathing and your eyes were still open. Your skin was pale and blood was everywhere. I-It scares me."

"I know it does. And I can't stand the thought of you dying either," I say. It feels so good to finally tell him things that I've never said to him before; however, I have told other people that I'd die for him in a second. "But blood is blood. We share the same DNA and genetics. Even after every fight and disagreement we've had, I'd be standing at beside your deathbed, and I know that you'd do the same for me because you already have.

"W-What I'm trying to get at it is that family is family, and that I'll still love you no matter what happens," I say. He's silent for a moment, staring off into space. I sigh, looking down at the floor.

Then Tony wraps his arms around me tightly, holding me as close to him as possible. I hug him back, being careful of his left arm that is in a sling, closing my eyes as a tear rolls down my cheek. "You're my family," Tony cries. "I love you so much, kiddo."

"I know," I tell him.

"Don't you Han Solo me, brat," he laughs, letting me go. We stare into each other's teary eyes, both chuckling. Out of the corner of my eye I see Natasha coming around from another hallway, smiling at us. Tony looks away from me and glares at Natasha.

Later that day, we all look outside in a poorly lit room, leaning over a glass railing.

"The doctors say that he shattered L4 through S1," Tony informs Natasha about Rhodey. "Extreme laceration to the spinal cord. Probably looking at some form of paralysis."

Nat sighs. "Steve's not gonna stop. If you don't either, Rhodey's gonna be the best case scenario."

"You let them go, Nat," Tony tells her.

"We played this wrong."

"'We'?" Tony scoffs. "Boy, it must be hard to shake the whole double agent thing, huh? It sticks in the DNA."

"Are you incapable of letting go of your ego for one goddamn second?"

"T'Challa told Ross what you did, Nat," I speak up.

"So they're coming for you," Tony finishes off my statement.

"I'm not the one who needs to watch their back." And with that, she stomps away.

I sigh, punching my brother in the shoulder. "Sentiment. At least to one other person today."

"Ah, you know I'm not good at that," Tony whispers. His watch starts beeping, so he taps the screen twice to make it shut up. A hologram of a dead man comes up. "What am I looking at, FRIDAY?"

"Priority upload from Berlin police," the artificial intelligence program answers.

Tony and I meet at a glance. Something has happened, and that something is not good.

"Fire up the chopper," he orders FRIDAY.

•••

We fly over a dark ocean with waves crashing in all directions. I sit next to Tony in comfortable clothes. It feels odd not being in my suit, but it's here just in case. Tony helped me repair it with all this extra time on our hands, which will hopefully be beneficial.

"The Task Force called for a psychiatrist as soon as Barnes was captured," FRIDAY states, blurting out random facts as all pictures appear on Tony's phone-sized technology. "The UN dispatched Doctor Theo Broussard from Geneva within the hour. He was met by this man."

"Did you run facial recognition yet?" Tony asks her.

"What do I look like?"

"I was thinking a tall woman with a bob," I say, pondering about what her appearance would most likely be if she were a human.

"Oh, I've been picturing a redhead," Tony says. I nod, giving my mental picture FRIDAY glowing red hair.

"You must be thinking of someone else, boss," FRIDAY replies.

"Must be."

"The fake doctor is actually Colonel Helmut Zemo," FRIDAY says. Tony becomes frustrated, then finally projects the images in front of us. That's definitely the guy who was in the same room as Bucky that day. "Sokokian Intelligence. Zemo ran Echo Scorpion, a Sokovian covert kill squad."

"So what happened to the actual Broussard?" I ask her.

"He was found dead in a Berlin hotel room where police also found a wig and facial prothesis approximating the appearance of one James Buchanan Barnes."

"Son of a bitch," Tony mutters.

"Oh my god," I whisper, covering my mouth with a hand.

"Get this to Ross," Tony orders her.

"Yes, boss," she answers.

A few minutes later, Tony's poking some other tech of his, speaking on the phone with a guard. They tell us that we're ready to land. Something huge rises from the ocean, causing me to look out the window with my hands and face pressed against the glass in amazement. It's raining outside, ruining my view of the landing, but I can still hear and feel most of it.

We get out of the chopper after we're inside whatever this place is. Tony talks to Secretary Ross about Zemo. All I hear him say is that we should both be locked up here, mostly me. I agree with him.

He leads us to another part of this place, my guess a security room. Tony and I stare at Wanda, who is in a straight jacket and staring at the camera. She doesn't deserve this.

We are led into the actual cell area, walking down the walkway. I hear clapping coming from somewhere.

"The Futurist, gentlemen!" Clint announces from the floor of his cell. "The Futurist is here! He sees all! He knows what's best for you, whether you like it or not."

"Give me a break, Barton," Tony says. "I had no idea they'd put you here. Come on."

Clint spits onto the floor. "Yeah, well, you knew they'd put us somewhere, Tony."

"Yeah, but not some super-max floating ocean pokey. This place is for maniacs. This is a place for—"

"Criminals," Clint finishes his statement. "Criminals, Tony. Think that's the word you're looking for. Right? That didn't used to mean me. Or Sam, or Wanda. But here we are."

I belong here, I think. This is the one place I would ever belong to in this world.

"Because you broke the law," Tony says.

"Yeah."

"I didn't make you. You read it. You broke it," Tony says. Clint blocks out his words childishly by repeating the word "la" over and over again. I look around the room, feeling so at home. "You're all grown up, you got a wife and kids. I don't understand, why didn't you think about them before you chose the wrong side?"

"You gotta watch your back with this guy," Clint shouts, pounding against the glass. "There's a chance he's gonna break it."

Tony directs me to follow him past another cell. I swallow down tears. Tony and I are pretty much the same person deep down. When they speak about him badly, there's a huge chance they're talking to me too.

"Hank Pym always said you never can trust a Stark," Scott Lang says, who is also locked up. They're like the voice in my head that are always screaming at me. The same words over and over again. And now they're being repeated aloud by another human being.

"Who are you?" Tony asks him.

"Come on, man," Scott mutters.

I stand in front of his cell staring him dead in the eyes. "Scott Lang. Ant-Man. Just about the most light hearted, awesomest hero I've ever known." He smiles at me as I walk away to follow my brother with my head down.

"How's Rhodes?" Sam asks Tony from his own cell. This poor guy, he just tried to safe himself and hurt another person in the process.

"They're flying him to Columbia Medical tomorrow, so fingers crossed," Tony sighs. "What do you need? They feed you yet?"

"You're the good cop now?"

"I'm just the guy who needs to know where Steve went."

I try to keep my best pokerface. Tony doesn't know that I have a small idea of Steve's location. I can't let anyone behind those cameras know either for both my own safety and Steve's.

"Well, you better go get a bad cop because you're gonna have to go Mark Fuhrman on my ass to get information out of me," Sam growls.

Tony hits buttons on his watch, then sirens start wailing. "Well, I just knocked the A out of their AV. We got about thirty seconds before they realize it's not their equipment. Just look," Tony says, pulling up the picture of the dead guy. "Because that is the fellow who was supposed to interrogate Barnes. Clearly, I made a mistake. Sam, I was wrong."

"That's a first."

"Cap is definitely off the reservation, but he's about to need all the help he can get. We don't know each other very well. We don't have to—"

"Hey, it's alright," Sam sighs. "Look, I'll tell you, but you have to go only with Tori and as a friend."

"Easy."

"T, watch over him for me."

"Always," I tell him, giving Sam a smile. He grins back.

After Tony and I leave the cell area, we return back the where the chopper is being kept.

"Mr. Stark, did he give you anything on Rogers?" Ross asks my big brother as we step onto the helicopter.

"Nope. Told me to go to hell. We're going back to the compound instead, but you can call me anytime. I'll put you on hold. I like to watch the line blink," Tony rambles. And with a grin, he closes the door and we take off. I sit in my seat, laughing.

"Did you really just quote my 'I like to watch the line blink' statement?" I ask him.

"Yup."

"You do realize that I was eight, in an office, and bored out of my mind, right?"

"Yup. And it was, and still, hilarious."

We chuckle. He checks his watch, then sticks his finger into the panel between us. "You do it too, knucklehead," he says.

I obey, placing the tip of my finger on the metal. My suit builds off from it and so does Tony's. I sink back further into the chopper, then dropped out. I propel myself up so that I don't fall into the churning ocean with Tony zooming by my side.

"Let's do this," I say.