Deep inside the main building, back where it was unlikely to be found, Grant, Anthony, and Brooklyn were doing their best to hide, despite being completely against it. Steve had ordered them to keep put where they were, spoken to them as their Captain and not as their father, so they felt more compelled to comply; it still wasn't enough, of course, for your three headstrong children who took after both of you far too well.

"We can't just sit here while everyone is out there fighting!" Grant argued with his siblings. "We have powers for a reason, Stephen said that from day one! You guys, our family is out there and could be dying while we're hiding like scared little kids!"

"We're doing what Mom and Dad told us to do," Brooklyn answered, "so we stay here until we don't have a choice. We told them we would stay as safe as we could, remember? This is where we wait."

"Then why did we go through training with Strange? Was that just to kill time? Get us out of their hair for a year? He told them that we could help save the world someday, and I, for one, am not gonna sit on my ass-"

"Language, man," Anthony groaned, looking around like he would still be caught by Steve, even though it was the furthest from his dad's mind right now.

"I'm not gonna sit on my ass and wait for the world to end around us." Grant stood firm and held his resolve to act, looking from his brother and to his sister and back, waiting with anticipation and eagerness for one of them to go along with it. He wasn't going to wait long and they knew it; they also couldn't fight the intuition that the three of them had always shared, and the connection that they tried to push away and failed to yet again in this moment.

Fireball was right.

~~~

Everything was moving in such a maddening, yet intolerably frantic slow motion, and you had never felt so out of place in your own body. You had never felt so out of place within your team, each of you struggling to just stay alive at this point. The training that Steve had pushed on everyone to learn, to use each other's skills and weapons, was doing some good, but it wasn't the outcome that he had hoped for. Yes, you were a better marksman now with Clint's bow, and sure, Peter could throw the shield almost as effectively as Cap, but it was like putting a band-aid over a hemorrhage. It was barely holding the edges of the wound together.

Thanos was standing atop the main building, ensnared in a fight with Stephen and Wanda, who were just keeping up with every hit he could throw at them. It was clear that they would be outmatched on their own, and as a pair they were beginning to show signs of faltering. You had been not far from where they stood, on the ground with Natasha and Clint taking on Ebony Maw, the one who had controlled Brooklyn in an effort to not only win but to enact some of your own vengeance, when you heard a voice from above that left Wanda stumbling towards the edge of the roof in a stupor and emotional breakdown.

"Oh, hell no," Tony growled, hearing it too, "Wanda, I've got you!" He quickly changed his trajectory to swing past and grab her before she could fall, the sounds of Vision's voice filling the air around her as the Titan toyed with her pain. With the mind stone in his possession and firmly settled into the Gauntlet, he knew that it would be more effective than any strike he could throw her way. "Don't listen," he commanded, "it's not him, you know that."

"I know," Wanda panted, covering her ears as he carried her, "I do, and I'm trying. But I need to help Stephen...he can't hold him on his own."

"Let me deal with that. Rhodey's already there and I'll circle back. Here," he paused, quickly but gently setting her onto her feet, "stay with Sam and Peter, and I'll call you back up there if I need you, okay?" With that, before she could utter her agreement, he was in the air again with repulsors firing to light up the blackened sky around them as his hits landed on their target.

"(Y/N)!" Steve called out to you, barely audible under the chaos. When you could take the brief second it would take just to turn his way, he was already at your side. "Buck and I are going to make a run for the hangar, see if we can get jets in the air for more fire power. Tony's going to try to hold his attention," he stopped again, this time turning to extend his shield to protect Nat, "and T'Challa just got Corvus cornered by the parking garage, but I don't know how long he can hold him. We should get the team inside and re-group."

"We're no safer in there than we are out here, Steve," you answered with a grunt, landing a hit to your opponent. "What if that just traps us right where he wants us. Out here at least we're mobile."

"We need to catch our breath...or we're going to wear out before this really gets...started," he struggled, this time to catch a spear out of mid-air that had been aimed for him, and his rage only grew. It fed the strength he needed to throw it back at its owner, Proxima Midnight, hoping that he could pull it together enough to strike her down, only to find that it barely set her back. She outmatched him in strength, speed, and agility, and he knew that this wouldn't be her last move at him.

"This isn't getting started?"

Steve turned and surveyed the scene before him, seeing the team one by one taking hits that could be their last at any time, some of them struggling and stumbling just to stay upright. No one was about to back down, but that tenacity was what would get any one of them killed, and he knew that they would push themselves until they were nothing in a fight and only another liability that he couldn't afford. "That's my call, (Y/N)," he nodded, turning to run, "get the team back."

~~~

Despite the fact that they knew better, your three emerged from their hiding place, only to stop quickly at the sight of the team in a violent battle outside; sights and sounds that crippled their resolve came through windows at every direction, and it was so much more than what they had planned to see.

"Where did the sun go?" Grant gasped, disbelieving what he saw.

"They're in over their heads," Brooklyn whispered, her eyes filled with terror. "They're losing."

"They're not," Anthony insisted, pushing on, "they can't. They're the Avengers, and they don't lose."

Grant was taking the sights the worst of all, lost in watching you take shots that missed their target, only to be knocked down with each one worse than the last. He had never watched you in a fight that you didn't win, and it scared him to his core. When Steve entered his line of vision next, only to see the same thing, with dirt and tears in his uniform from the fight making him look so much smaller, it became too much. The heat that always filled his body began to cool, and he felt true, unabatingly persistent fear for the first time in his life; he was cocky and arrogant about his abilities, he knew that, but now he had none of that to fall back on, and he couldn't move. When the building around them began to shake, and pictures began to fall from the walls around them, he finally found his voice.

"They are, Ant," Grant choked out over the lump in his throat, "and I was wrong. There's nothing we can do."

~~~

Steve wasn't one to make tactical mistakes; he was the master, the perfectionist, the one the team counted on to always know when to turn right or to turn left. So when he insisted that the team begin to fall back as their ranks weakened and stumbled, barely holding their own, no one questioned it. It wasn't that it was any safer from Thanos or the Order within the compound walls, but it could give a few precious minutes to take the smallest breath, to take a single drink of water, anything that could feel like a rejuvenation. It could be a moment stolen with partners when there were no promises of more, and all that Steve wanted was to be able to see that his family was still intact; that they were still alive. You wanted to give him that solace, knowing it would keep his focus, but you would be denied before you had the chance.

The team fled into the main building, but you had been held back by a blast that set the ground on fire at your feet, pushing you back and away before you could reach the door. For every step you tried to take forward, the fire shifted, followed you, until you had to push back again. The sounds of Steve yelling your name only gave the Titan more entertainment and urged him on to create a bigger divide between you. Tony was still trying to distract Thanos enough to help his team escape, and he was so close to making it into the building until FRIDAY turned the suit to intercept you when he didn't see what was happening for himself. He may have saved you, but now it left the two of you completely on your own with the team inadvertently trapped inside.

"Well, shit," Tony groaned, "this wasn't the plan. If we want to get in there, it looks like it's up to you and me, kiddo."

"Excuse me and pardon for thwarting the plan born of supposed genius," Thanos smiled, taking a few steps towards the edge of the roof to look down on you, "but the Captain has provided a service of which I owe my gratitude. When I arrived, I knew that the battle would be glorious, though swift, but this exceeds the expectations to which I am accustomed. Watch as I repay him for the gift he has bestowed."

With a swift swing of his Gauntlet-clad arm, another brilliant beam shot forth, aimed at the edge of the structure beneath his own feet. He turned, using the beam to cut through the dense roof edge by edge until there was nothing more to hold it, and it crashed down into the top floor, it's weight toppling into the next, and the next, until the building was a pile of shattered and burning rubble, with your team and your family still inside.

~~~

The moment, when it came, hit you like a freight train, the fear and panic rushing into your throat at the understanding of the unavoidable. You had warned Steve that this would happen, and maybe he didn't believe it, or maybe he just wasn't thinking clearly under the stress and fear of this battle, but nonetheless, it was upon you and you had to move despite your body's insistency to stay frozen in fear.

It was the premonition that was fate; the nightmare shared with Anthony that was now reality.

Tony turned to you, feeling as if it could be the last time, and he pulled you in as close as his suit would allow. He could lean forward just enough to leave a gentle kiss on your forehead, in the spot where he was now pressing his head to yours. His breathing was slow and rhythmic, and you were envious of his calm; it was a ruse, and you knew that, but if you could take any strength from even his barely maintained façade, then you would.

"Thank you for letting me be your dad," he whispered, his voice coarse and strained. "Thank you for the family that you've shared with me. Thank you showing me how to live."

"Dad..."

"I love you," he pulled back with a struggling smile, "more than anything else."

"I love you, too. I could never have asked for a better father. You made me who I am today, and I'm so proud to be your daughter."

"Okay," he nodded definitively, a quiet sniffle heard before he closed his helmet and turned towards the compound again. He knew that he had to disengage his heart from this, or he wouldn't survive the first step inside and the sight of his friends meeting their fates. "I'll see you on the other side, (Y/N)."

You pulled the katana that Wade had given you from their sheaths on your back, spinning them in your hands until they found just the right fit. You let your feelings go, burying the emotion as deeply as you could so that it wouldn't hinder your ability, and you readied yourself as much as you could for what you were about to see in the battlefield that had been your home. You couldn't look at it that way anymore, or you would break before you could even begin.

"Let's send him into hell screaming, Tony."

He lifted from the ground and you rushed forward, but your attempts would quickly be found futile. The Gauntlet was aimed once more, this time towards the sky, and you unconsciously held your breath as you watched in pure horror as the beast smiled with satisfaction. "Tony," you gasped, wanting to run but unable, "what...w-what's he doing?"

"Get behind me!" he answered, pushing in front as if that would help, but it was all he had. It was ingrained in him to protect you, even at his own cost, and even if his attempts would mean nothing. The black sky around you began to brighten, but not because Thanos was allowing the sunlight to shine again, but because of the power being used to pull the sky down like a blanket of death over you. It looked as if he were bringing the whole of the universe crashing down, and the final thing that you saw was the shining red of Tony's suit as he landed atop you, forcing you to the ground and into darkness.