Debris fluttered down from the shadowed sky like snowflakes falling in the middle of winter. But instead of iridescent flakes of heavenly shaped snow, what fell around you was made of something much heavier. Although paper thin, just as the flakes of snow that would melt the moment they hit your flesh, these flecks that fluttered down upon the Earth wouldn't disappear. For they lined the street that your feet ran down, hitting the pavement harshly, as the fragments settled along the cement below your thundering steps. What fell from the sky it seemed, and swirled itself around you as though a blizzard, weren't made of magical sprinkles from the sparkling winter clouds, but rather the buildings of your home crumbling to rubble around you. The ash that clouded the air like smoke and the floating fragments that consumed your sight for miles, was made of the loss of the city that you had always called home. The flakes were pieces of someone's life, someone's home, someone's family, some one. What fell around you, to the human eye resembled that of glittering snowflakes, but as they collected along your shoulders with a heavy weight, as they flew through your hair as you ran, these flakes were pieces of a humanity crumbling to its feet before you.   

Chaos screamed at the top of its lungs as it echoed around you. The piercing cries of those trapped, those injured, those in terror as the home they knew fell from the sky. The clashing of metal that rang throughout the sky and the city like a siren. It sounded like war; the bullets flying and popping through the air like someone had lit a parade of fireworks down the city streets. The screeching of the invading army scraping against the buildings as they rained hell down upon the citizens. The overwhelming thumping sensation that felt like someone was playing the loudest drum they could possibly find in the depth of your ear. It beat harsher with each breath you inhaled, and as the sound radiated as though a thrust against a gong, you could feel the sound rattling through your tired and aching bones. 

The dust that coated the city burned your lungs, for it felt like thick smoke obstructing your ability to breathe. You could feel the ash of the crumbling buildings stinging your eyes, making tears water and fall over the edges, trailing paths through the itching soot that covered the flesh of your face. And each time you tried to cough out the feeling of the debris somehow in your lungs, your footsteps stumbled. Your body burned, the muscles strained and begging for relief as your body and mind had long since been lost on where or what to do. You watched as the destruction around you whirled, knowing your feet were still keeping you moving in some capacity, but it felt as though the world around you suddenly moved in slow motion. For your eyes couldn't comprehend what it was they tried to see, and yet everything seemed slow enough that all you could do was watch your homeland crumble to pieces around you.

Rubble lined the streets, boulders made from the walls of once stable and inhabited buildings now blocking exits and collecting across the roads around you. It looked like the city had been hit with a bomb, for everything was strewn and broken apart. Cars crushed and turned over, buildings crimpling and falling apart. Foundations being pulled apart at their very seams. But it wasn't the sight of the world ending that finally brought your feet to still below you, it was the casualties that you had never seen before in your life. 

You didn't feel when your feet stopped moving, you didn't even realize your body had stopped. You were frozen, as though your feet had been trapped beneath the cement poured where you stood. You felt numb; for the crippling sound of fear around you suddenly disappeared and the pain that coursed through your weakened body was no longer perceivable. Your body was deathly still, as your eyes fell upon a sight that made the sky falling seem less horrific. 

The world around you was bathed in beige, a colorless shade of the home you once knew falling apart. It lined the streets and it coated your flesh in a monotone color that made the Earth look hopeless. But beneath a chunk of the nearest building, that stood nearly toppled over with it's interior beams and foundation sticking out like a cry for help, a new color arose. A deep crimson red oozed like a thin stream through the path of colorless debris and ash. It looked darker than any color you had ever seen, like it wasn't real. As though your tired eyes were playing tricks on you. But as your eyes slowly followed the trail, leading out from beneath the piece of concrete, it came to life as it touched the soul of your tennis shoe. The red grabbing hold of the --now dusted and smudged-- white canvas fabric and painting itself across the surface. Your stomach lurched at the sight of it swelling beneath your frozen stance, the thick liquid flowing from the boulder that showed off a single hand trapped within the rubble. 

Death. It was all around you now... and you wondered just how much time you had before it finally came for you too.

Monsters made of silver metal clashed with a being that wore similar metallic armor, but rather a deeper burgundy and glinting gold, that stood out amongst the bleak background of the falling sky above you. The sound of gunfire erupting in the sky and on the ground that felt shaky below your frozen feet, but all you could do was look up at the battle ensuing in the melancholy clouds. A sight frightfully less unnerving than the one that laid bleeding feet away from you in the pile of broken rubble. Until a vibration in the concrete you stood stiffly on top of cleared you of your clouded mind, and looking down at your feet, you caught sight of the cement just feet to your left beginning to fall. It was as though an earthquake tore its way straight through the street, cutting it in half without any hesitation for any sign of humanity still left in its vicinity. 

Your body moved far before your mind had any realization of what it was doing, for it was programmed to run in the face of fear. Terror; being your guiding conscious as your anxiety overtook your brain. You could feel the thundering intensity of the soles of your shoes pounding the clouded pavement, the ache in your legs as your heat beat rapidly, doing all it could to catch up with the speed in which you ran forward with. And suddenly, feeling as though you had reached the very edge of a slippery cliff and tripped over a small chunk of the crippling rock, you were suddenly flying downward. No longer running against the pavement, but rather kicking wildly as the rush of wind blew between your trembling legs. Your hands clawed at the void around you, as a blood curdling scream echoed around you, as you soon discovered it fell from your own lips. And just as the last of the pavement was almost out of reach, your right hand that had been scraping for anything that could constitute as one last saving grace, grabbed hold of a metal pipe bending out from the edge of the dense cement. And you held onto that rusted piece of metal as though an anchor in the midst of a storming sea. 

It felt as though you were floating... or rather drowning. Your hand held onto the pipe like it was a bouncing buoy in the middle of the ocean, the only thing keeping your head above the waves. And yet, as your body dangled through the open air, the cold rushing throughout your clothing and hitting against your bare flesh with a bite, it felt as though you were floating across a weightless cloud. Far were you from salted and weighted down waters, instead you were hanging high in the sky somewhere miles from the land. Closer to heaven than the shoreline.

Your right hand felt hot, as your knuckles began to turn white from the pressure in which you gripped the metal. But it was the sticky flow of a thick trickling liquid that brought forth a searing sensation against your skin. For the metal rod that was currently keeping you alive, was eating away at the flesh of your palm. Cutting through as though the sharpest knife. You didn't spot the blood at first, the way your eyes seemed glazed over and lost as you stared upward at the clouded sky above you. But it was when you felt a slow tickling trickle down your right arm, that your gaze shifted. It started down your wrist in a single, thin streak, until it divided and the deep crimson curled around your aching extremity. It felt like it was burning your skin, as all you could do was watch your blood flow from your hand. The rusted pipe becoming slick and tainted with your blood, no longer a rust and dirt ridden color, but one of deep maroon. But it wasn't the only burning you could feel across your flesh.

Your eyes seemed to drip with acid, for the salt of your tears trailed down your face and branded a trail in it's path. Your face was still, your eyes bouncing back and forth, but you didn't sob like you thought you might. Instead, your body released a silent cry. One that welled in your eyes, at such an intensity, that the tears simply overflowed without anything you could do to stop them.

You wondered, as you felt your head begin to grow weary and drowsy, the air becoming harder to breathe, if this was what your end really looked like. Hanging off of a shattered piece of cement that was once your safe hometown, your hand holding onto a rusted metal pipe that was digging into your flesh and spitting your blood down your body. Was this how your life ended? Alone, bloody, afraid? Dangling above the inevitable, your time only stretched as long as your hand could hold on. A suffocating sensation filled your chest, and as your eyes fluttered shut, you let it consume you. Hopelessness.

Until a single sound broke through the dense barrier, and it felt as though the voice came from the void beyond. For it sounded muddled and far, just out of reach and yet you knew it called out to you specifically.

"Give me your hand!"

And ever so slowly, your eyelids that were weighted down by the heavy tears that soaked your lashes, fluttered open. Timidly at first, as though you were afraid to be met with a bright light or worse... the same reality you had closed your eyes to escape. But as your hesitant eyes looked up, a new sight entered your blurred view. For a figure stood before the clouded and burning backdrop of the city of Sokovia, and adorned in a suit of deep blue and red, he was a light compared to the decay that lay behind him. He almost seemed as though a figment of your imagination, the edges of his being shadowed until your eyes refocused on his face that was lowered down your way. His knees brushing against the soot ridden ground, as his arm extended out towards your dangling and bleeding body.

The helmet he wore was smudged with dirt and what you could only assume was the blood of a victim, smeared across the silver A that sat in the center. And the strap that wrapped around his jawline, looked to dig into his scratched and tired skin. His hand, that reached out into the open air inches above your head, was open. His palm stretched flat, welcoming you into his safe grip, if only you trusted him enough to reach out as well. His hands were calloused and tainted with dirt, but there was a strength within the lines of his palm that spoke of how hard he would keep hold of your hand if you would give it to him.

And so, with all of the trust, faith and bravery you could muster from within your fading self, you reached your left hand forward. Still gripping tightly to the metal bar that tore through the flesh of your right hand, but stretching out your fingers on your left as far as you could, they brushed against something warm. Warm in the way that was inviting, comforting, safe. And soon, your fingertips and the rest of your palm was engulfed in the warmth. Gripped tightly in the embrace of Captain America's strong hand.

He was human, just as much as you were. For when you looked into the depths of his blue eyes, as you willed your hand to hang on, you saw the fear clash within the waves of sapphire blue. They weren't completely calm or overshadowed with confidence, it was as though he didn't quite know the true extent of his own strength. You saw determination and kindness that drew you in like the current, but it was the fear of losing you that made you see the true human being beneath the suit of red and blue.

He was innocent however, in the way of not knowing what his eyes shone with. He didn't know that his irises gave away the trepidation that clenched his racing heart or the anxious adrenaline that was just beginning to slicken the palm of his hand. He kept his face composed for you, his gaze steady on your eyes that were wide with terror. He kept you focused on him, and with his calm exterior, he kept you as distracted from the shattering city below your dangling feet. You may have seen the panic in his eyes, something that was out of his knowledge and control, but the way he held onto your hand and looked at you with the utmost intensity, it made you feel calmer. Even as you hovered above your impending death.

"I need you to let go of the pipe now," His voice was warm, just as his hand was. A comfort floating over you like a blanket in the dead of winter, and yet you could hear the anxious shake in his tone. "I've got you, I won't let you go."

His words may have shook under the pressure of the situation you found yourself in, but his eyes spoke of sincerity and the longer you looked into the blue that seemed to sweep you in like the tide, you saw a promise. Sealed within the deep swirls of his irises and given to you by the tight grip of his outstretched hand. A promise that prompted yourself to take one last breath, and let go of the metal that dripped of your blood. It felt as though a higher power had it's arms wrapped around your body, holding you near and holding you close as though you were on your way to a better place. But slowly, as you watched the void below you shrink and the sight of the hero in front of you grow closer, you realized that it wasn't the hand of God himself pulling you to safety. But this man. A super soldier that had been fighting hard against the monster that plagued the core of your city. But beneath all of the armor and all of the unlikely strength, it was the human being who's face hovered inches above your own, as your back laid flat touching the pavement of the street, who saved you.

And looking up into the purest pair of eyes that belonged to the most genuine human being you had ever met, you began to wonder if perhaps humanity wasn't as far gone as you had once believed it to be.

A/N: This one is far longer than I thought it would turn out to be, but I love it! I've had this idea for a little while, and it's taken me some time to write this one. I wanted to get the descriptions and details as vivid and real as I could get them, as I wanted to make it feel like you were really there in Sokovia as it all came crumbling apart. Although there isn't much dialogue, and Steve doesn't come in until we start heading towards the ending, he is still very much the essence and guiding light of this one shot. I wanted his pure heart and selfless character to be what stood out in this one, and I am very happy with what I was able to create. I hope you all enjoyed it!!❤