(Listen to If the World was Ending by: JP Saxe ft. Julia Michaels while you read this one. This song is so beautiful and strong and makes my heart love and ache all at the same time, and I feel like it fits the essence of this one shot perfectly.)

Steve Rogers felt the crushed rubble beneath the soles of his roughed up boots. His leather boots that once resembled a warm brown shade, were now completely dusted with soot and ash. Leaving black boot-prints behind him with every step, marking the trail of destruction he'd traveled along. The crumbled cement of a nearing apartment building lined the entrance way like boulders, as though to keep the trapped souls inside and Captain America out. But as Steve exhaled deeply with each exasperated breath he took, his movements and speed unhindered by the weariness growing deep within his bones and the anxiety blooming in the pit of his stomach, he approached the ruins for even as the other buildings around him continued to crumble, he knew this building. Even as every other building looked the same as this one on this single street, there would always be something about this single structure that Steve would be able to distinguish from all the others. And even now, as he stepped over the threshold that was nearly blocked by the fallen foyer, there was something in the remains that filled him with an unnerving sense of familiarity. 

Ducking below the scraping metal pipe that hovered inches above his head, Steve gripped the large slab of the building with his right hand as he entered the destruction with caution, instantly encapsulated by darkness. Streaks of pale sunlight begged to be let in through the small cracks in the layers of rubble growing around him like vines on a terrace. But any light, even that from distant flames of a burning fire, wasn't enough to brighten the space. Steve's eyes burned as the dust replaced the oxygen in the air around him, and they were slow to adjust to the darkness that consumed his surroundings. The air was thick as he tried to take a deep breath, once he made it past the crumbling entry way, but it was like breathing in smoke. Stinging his senses and causing a dry cough to erupt within his pained lungs. His hands danced across the walls made of fallen debris, trying to be the guidance his eyes searched for as he ventured further into the once beautiful and spacious lobby. But all he found was cuts in his palms as open pipes and metal nails scraped against his flesh, and the further he brushed them against the unnervingly cold cement, he could feel as they continued to cave inward. Shortening the space and causing the air Steve searched for to become denser and scarce.    

As Steve's eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness around him, he began to familiarize with his surroundings. They were different, as they came falling apart at the seams around him, but nonetheless, the recognizable sights made his feet continue forward. His boots walked over broken glass that cracked beneath his weight, and making out the faint gold detailing in the sliver of light that glinted against it, he walked over the large chandelier that was once hung high above him. The shards grounding into the previously bright red carpeting that was now stained with blackened ash, and a shade of something darker that Steve hated to even acknowledge. But it was there, soaking into the fabric and staining the grey concrete in deep wine tones. 

His ears echoed with the sounds of the chaos ensuing just behind him on the other side of the fallen foyer, but somehow inside, it was deathly silent. He could still hear the screams of terror in his head, whether from truly hearing it in the moment or simply from the memories he could never erase, but there was something sickening about the suffocating silence that consumed him inside of the fallen apartment walls. It was as though Steve had stepped into a void, and even taking a breath sounded deafening in the quiet. The crunching of his boots over crushed glass and broken furniture rumbled around him, but no matter the noise his movements caused, it couldn't touch the unsettling silence that took over the atmosphere around him.  

Until a single pressure beneath the sole of his shoe and the soft snap beneath, halted Steve's breath and his burning blue eyes shut tightly as soon as the sound resonated through him. It wasn't as scraping as all of the moving rubble had been and it wasn't the clean crackling ping of glass or even lost belongings strewn across the ruins, this sound was small and to the normal ear, hardly heard over the destruction continuing in the street behind him. But to Steve, it was the loudest sound he'd heard since he entered the fallen building. For it didn't just echo in his ears, he felt it in the pit of his stomach and he could feel as the sound clutched his chest and squeezed. He'd seen it before, as innocent casualties were always a part of war, just as there would always be someone out in the world willing to start a fight over something they believed was right. It was inevitable... and yet it still twisted Steve Rogers's stomach into a million tiny knots. 

Collecting his mind back from the darkness that was begging to pull him under, he exhaled a deep breath as he stepped forward through the rubble. Ducking underneath another large piece of the fallen ceiling, that had ultimately let in the floors above, Steve ventured towards the crumbled fireplace towards the right of the once large lobby. Memories of waiting in front of the beautiful rust red brick fireplace, for a certain someone on the third floor, came flooding back to him as Steve stepped over the broken bricks that scattered across the blood and soot stained carpet like Legos dumped across a living room floor. The mantel that had once hovered above the safely captured flames, caved into the firewood. The candle sticks and figurines that had once lined the marble shattered to the floor, lost to the layers of unrecognizable rubble beneath Steve's feet. 

The bookshelves that had previously stood so tall on either side of the mantel, now laid sadly on the ground. Books strewn across the floor, some open with pages bent and bloody and ripped from the ceiling that fell upon them. They lined the ground as though another complete layer of wreckage, and Steve could hear the snapping of the spines as he stepped over them. His feet stepping through the now open spaces the shelves provided against the floorboards. Heading towards the corner where a chair once sat, covered in rustic and antiquey fabric that went well with the wallpaper, now sat ripped through the center. Dust covered up the once satin like fabric, and debris of the apartments above weighed it down. And the large flat screen television that hung across from it was crashed to the floor, its cords severed and the glass cracked as though Mjolnir had swung straight through the middle. But as Steve looked to the destruction that encapsulated him, the faintest glint captured his wandering eye. It was so light that he questioned the validity of it in the first place, if he was simply seeing things as his eyes were growing weary to the burning debris that couldn't help but line his aching eyes. But as he bent down slowly, he saw it glint again. And leaning forward, he lifted the thick binding of a book and brushed away the ash to find a cellphone, blinking that it's battery had almost run out. But it wasn't the fact that it was still on that startled Steve Rogers, but rather what was flashed across the open screen. 

A single name... a single number... a single call still in action. 

It was as though someone had used a defibrillator on Steve's heart, for his body suddenly lurched into a painfully strong sense of adrenaline. His eyes wide and no longer sensing the stinging sensation of the surrounding dust. His breaths rapid and short and sharp and tight in the depth of his chest. His head whipped back and forth as he exhaled loud puffs of air as he looked for a sign of where to start, but finally he found his knees dropping into the rubble and he started to dig. Throwing the blocks of concrete and wood back, without any indication that this was where he should be digging. But as he kept seeing the flashing light of his name on the screen of the soon to be dead cellphone, he scooped up the debris with a strength that could've picked up the entire brick fireplace if it hadn't crumbled to the ground already. 

Even as his eyes had adjusted to the hazy surroundings, it still hindered the clarity in which he could see the destruction in front of him. And as though he was on a mission to find a needle in the middle of a pitch dark cave, he searched for something... anything... a sign that the person he was looking for was here somewhere. The darkness that he had casted out of his head slowly crept back, as the echoing memory of the broken remains he had stepped on minutes ago haunted his mind and the images of the blood bath out on the streets of New York made his blood boil with increasing anxiety. The silence that once made his stomach uneasy and sick, was now replaced with a pulsing sensation that made him feel as though he stood in front of a radiating sound wave under water. Drowning as he fought for a breath and feeling pressure that threatened to crush him in the process. But as his soot coated and bleeding hands finally fell upon something different than the cold cement and sharp pierce of shards of broken glass and splintering wood, air entered his lungs. As though he was brought out of the stormy sea and left resting against the sandy shore. 

It was a dry and brittle sensation that entangled itself within Steve's calloused fingers. As his fingers rubbed the strands together, pieces of debris tumbled out from in between, but his fingers soon dropped as he cleared out the wreckage faster. Lifting all of the cement and wood and fallen books that he could, to reveal more of the sight that lay waiting underneath the collapsed building. It felt as though every piece he shoveled off was simply replaced by another, as his movements felt futile and repetitive and unbearably slow. He could barely make out the items he was moving away and tossing behind him, but something allowed him to make out the shape of the being trapped beneath the destruction. The rounded shape of a shoulder poked through and Steve saw the way the strands of brittle hair laid strewn across a bare neck. The fabric ripped over the exposed shoulder bone that protruded in a curve that, even in the darkness, Steve knew wasn't natural. An arm slung over a slab of concrete and it looked flatten against the cold stone. But it was with one last boulder of stone moved to the side, that the shape of a beautifully familiar face came into fruition. 

Shadows of the relentless darkness and the fallen ash marred the flesh, making her blend into the ground she laid sandwiched within. And blood trickled down from the right side of her lip, trailing down her chin as her eyes laid shut. Steve reached out his hand out hesitantly, barely pressing his flesh against the very edge of her temple. Her flesh was still warm but as he leaned in closer, a single sight made any hope dissipate as the clear air in this room had long ago. 

Blood was smeared across her collarbone and lower chest as though a painter had used her as a canvas. Sweeping deep burgundy blood against her pale and now soot covered flesh. It wrapped around her neck as the maroon shade contrasted with the rusty brown coming from the pipe impaling the right side of her neck. Only a sliver of the metal was visible as most was laid hidden within the rubble beneath her, and the rest was lost in the mangled remnants of her neck. 

A slight flicker of her eyelids startled Steve, even as he knew somehow she was still managing to live despite her injury, but his chest tightened as he watched her bloody lips part in the slowest fashion she could muster. 

"I called you..." It was in that moment that the insufferable silence that had kept Steve Rogers on edge, came in handy. For it was though the words were merely whispers in the dense void circling around him, and only in the depth of silence he found himself in, could he hear the words she struggled to make out. 

Steve returned his hand to the top of her head, and softly ran it over her torn hair. "Shh, it's alright."

She could barely move her lips, and her eyes weren't opening again. But still she knew he was there. It was as though his presence was enough to tell her she was safe in an embrace that was familiar and one she thought she had lost long ago. Life was fading from her body; it was like Steve could feel it beneath the flat touch of his palm. But with one last breath, as the edge of her lip moved just enough to form the words, she whispered to him.

"...because your voice was the last voice I wanted to hear..."

And it was. For her final breath fell upon Steve's listening ears and open heart. Her final wish had been heard, just as Steve's nightmare began. When the world around her began to fall, he was the only person on her mind. When the crumbling walls trapped her beneath them, his number was still the one dialed on her dying phone. And as death began to claim her body, his voice was the last one that she heard. 

As the world around her began to disappear and the life inside of her came to an end...Steve was there... just as she had always hoped he would be.

A/N: Wow! I really shocked myself with this one, I have to admit! I am so in love with the writing I created here, the descriptions and overall flow of the piece is something I am so so proud of! I listened to this stunning song and found that mesmerizing GIF and this one shot came to be, but to read what I've written finished, it's better than I could've ever planned! I hope that you all enjoyed this one, I am so happy with how it turned out! (Even though my heart kind of hurts after this one...)❤