********
Bruce is the only one of them that avidly follows what Tony refers to "Stupidly Depressing News", so he catches wind of it first.
Steve is just sitting down with a bowl of cereal when Bruce comes in from the living room, where he'd been munching on his own breakfast while watching the television. "Looks like a lot of people are getting really sick," he says.
A mild statement that signals the beginning of the end.
*******
It's not fallout from a nuclear blast. It's not a biological weapon. It's nothing man made.
It's a strain of flu, and there's no treatment. No vaccine. It starts off like a cold, and most people ignore it and try to power through as normal, inadvertently spreading it to everyone they know in the meantime. The cough turns into fever that lasts for weeks, then turns into a delirium from which few people ever emerge.
People get sick by the tens of thousands, and then they start dying.
It spreads like wildfire; people wear gloves and hospital masks but the precautions don't seem to help at all. The numbers of dead continue to climb. Hospitals and pharmacies are looted, people fighting over placebos just as violently as over the real medications. The military and police force are both stretched thin, trying to cover too much country with rapidly dwindling numbers.
People go from store to store, looking for food. It doesn't matter how much money anyone has; there isn't much of anything to be found. Nothing is being produced and no deliveries are being made. Not that many people can go out buying anyway, with most of the population holed up in their homes or in hospitals, dying. Only desperate people are out, people that have thus far escaped infection, and the few that seem to be immune.
Tony empties out every sort of drug and medical item he has on hand or has access to--trying to help the men and women of Stark Industries keep their families alive. It doesn't help. Eventually he has nothing left to give and has to turn people away.
Around the country the power goes out. Then the water.
Things are collapsing.
*******
"I'm taking Pepper out of the city," Tony announces. "She's protected in the Tower but that's pointless if we starve to death instead. I want you guys to come away with us. So everybody pack your shit; we're leaving, we're gone."
"Where would we go?" Steve asks, but he's not arguing. It's a great idea; he only wishes they'd left months ago, when it all started. Maybe his friends will still be okay if they are isolated. Maybe they can still live.
"A place I have out in the country," Tony says. His face is lined and worried, as if he's aged a decade in the last two and a half months. "We'll hunker down and wait this thing out."
"I can't go with you." Bruce is apologetic, but adamant. "I have to stay, I have to try to help."
SHIELD is still working on a cure, one of the few agencies left operating, though a lot of people have stopped showing up. It's hard to know if they have died or if they've pulled a fade, the same way Tony proposes, and there's not enough resources to go looking for them.
Steve feels a sickness of his own, a crushing guilt, knowing that he will not catch it. He wishes that he were a scientist, a researcher like Bruce--to be immune and unable to help feels like selfishness, like waste. The self loathing he feels for being healthy while so many doctors and nurses have succumbed is almost paralyzing.
"We should stay, too," Natasha says, looking at Clint. "We can protect the facility while the scientists work. SHIELD needs all the hands it can get. Even if that's all we can do, it's something."
"No."
Nick Fury reaches out to take Natasha's hand then does the same with Clint, holding fast to the both of them. "You two are my strongest, my best. But I want you to leave with the team. Protect them. The world will need people like Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, Steve Rogers. They'll be needed after...to be leaders and creators when we've beaten this thing and start to rebuild." He searches their faces. "That's what I need from the two of you now. To watch over them. To make the hard decisions when they can't."
"You can trust us," Clint says quietly, and Natasha nods fiercely in agreement.
Nick holds their hands one moment more, then releases them. "I always have."
*******
Thor returns just before they depart, but tells them he will remain in New York. He will not leave Jane, who refuses to abandon the other scientists and their work for a cure.
"Isn't there anything you can do?" Steve asks him. "You said Earth was under your protection. Can't you help at all?"
"How?" Thor is genuinely grief stricken. He was shocked when Jane told him what was happening, had wept to see a dump truck hauling bodies away from a makeshift medical center to be burned. There are too many now to bury.
"Can you get us an Asgardian miracle?" There is no irony in Tony's voice, but not a lot of hope there, either.
"I wish I could. I wish that more than anything."
Before leaving, Tony hugs Thor and Bruce tightly and presses a Starkphone into the scientist's hand. "You guys keep in touch with us. We can't lose each other."
*******
The lake house is nicely furnished but poorly stocked with non-perishables; the food won't last long. There is a propane stove that Tony had bought years ago as a joke, and it is miles to the nearest town. It will do as a place to wait, a stronghold to shore up in until the danger passes. Clint and Natasha have many survival skills that they teach the others, who are quick learners. They have to be.
"I always thought doomsday preppers were a bunch of stupid jackasses," Tony observes ruefully. "But I guess they get the last laugh after all."
"This plague won't last forever," Natasha tells him. "It will end. We just have to make sure we're still alive when it does."
*******
Pepper and Tony are swimming in the lake, cooling down and also taking the opportunity to bathe a bit without the hassle of hauling water up to the house. Steve and Natasha sit along the narrow dock watching them, feet dangling in the water.
There's a faint splash, and Steve looks up in surpise to see two men paddle up in a canoe. They have sleeping bags and other supplies, look like they're on the move out of the area.
"Howdy," one says. The other says nothing, his face closed off and his hands hidden.
"Hey," Tony says uneasily, moving closer to Pepper. "How's it going?"
"You guys all healthy?" the man asks, then adds hopefully, "Do you have any food?"
Natasha rises smoothly to her feet, drawing a gun Steve didn't even know she was carrying. She does not point it at the men, just holds it loosely at her side. "No. You'd best move along."
They don't have much, that's true, but there is enough that they could share a bit. These men don't seem dangerous, just scared and hungry, as everyone is these days, and they have not done anything threatening. Steve stands up also, puts a hand on her arm. "Maybe we can--"
"No. We can't." Natasha's voice is firm and everyone but she jumps when the side door of the main house bangs open.
Clint strides out quickly toward them, barefoot, bow already drawn. He's wearing swim trunks and a t-shirt with a rainbow and the words I'm Happy and I Know It! stamped across the front. The cheerful message is a stark contrast to the menacing look on his face. He walks out to the water's edge, next to Pepper and Tony, his arrow pointed at the men in the canoe.
"There's nothing for you here," he tells them. "Get the fuck out."
"And don't come back," Natasha adds, her voice low but carrying just fine as they start paddling quickly away. Her eyes meet Steve's, unapologetic at his dismayed look.
"What was that?" he demands. "There was no call to act that way; neither of those men did a damned thing!"
Natasha shrugs, and Tony and Pepper come out of the lake, grabbing towels. Clint waves them impatiently toward the house, his eyes still on the retreating canoe. Natasha goes to stand beside him, and they stay there for a long time, watching the water.
*******
Natasha cuts everyone's hair; no one had been concerned about that in New York, but now they have too much time and not much to fill it with.
"We're survivalists now," Tony points out. "We're supposed to look like crap."
"Not if I have anything to say about it," Natasha counters. She finishes trimming Steve's hair and frowns apologetically. "Yours is a little uneven in the back. Sorry."
"That's alright. Feels good to have it off my ears." He smiles at her.
She cuts her own hair off as well, almost aggressively, not wanting to deal with it when washing up is such a chore. She offers to do the same for Pepper, but Tony is horrified at the idea and pleads with Pepper not to, unable to part with her beautiful long locks.
As Natasha finishes up Clint's cut Pepper sweeps up all the hair from the floor and gathers it together, then pauses in front of the trash can. "We should throw this outdoors, for the birds to use for their nests." She smiles self consciously, a little embarrassed. "I read about that in a book once and always thought it sounded sweet."
"Better not," Clint tells her, brushing off his shirt. "Human scent will chase off game animals."
Tony shoots him a dirty look and puts an arm around Pepper. "No, we should do it. Let's leave them something to remember us by."
*******
There's a grand piano in the living room, picturesque in front of the big window that overlooks the lake. Tony had taken lessons in his youth but retained nothing beyond "Chopsticks". He teaches Clint to play it and they sit together, throwing elbows and laughing, trying to cause the other to make a mistake. Pepper plays a little more, mostly nursery school songs and other simple tunes. It's better than silence, though, and that's how they end up gathered around the piano one night, passing around the last jar of peanut butter and singing Christmas carols in the middle of June.
All of them have pleasant voices except Tony, who Steve suspects is singing off-key on purpose, just to make the others tease. Pepper and Clint get into a good natured argument about the proper lyrics of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" which Tony solves by making up new ones, all of them filthy. He winks at Steve, who gamely sings along with the rest of them, only blushing a little.
It's the most that Steve has laughed in months, and the best night's sleep he's had in just as long.
*******
Steve awakens to pounding and shouting. He leaps out of bed and finds Pepper in the hallway, sobbing against Natasha's chest. Clint stands a little behind them, frowning and drumming his fingers anxiously on crossed arms.
"What's wrong?" Steve asks them. "What happened, what's wrong?"
Natasha holds Pepper, her eyes unreadable. "Tony's locked himself in his room. He has the flu."
*******
Steve marks a large X over the front door using some spray paint he'd found in the garage. It's doubtful anyone will come by and see it; they haven't seen any people since those men in the canoe, but he does it all the same. During their final days in New York X's had covered almost every door.
Illness within. Keep away.
He never thought he'd see one over his own door.
"Don't let Pepper die," Tony half begs, half demands. His eyes are glassy but suspicious, as if he thinks Steve is responsible, or hates him for being immune when Tony is not. "Promise me, Cap. That you won't let Pepper die." He leans up to cough wetly, trying to cover his mouth and not quite succeeding, then sags back onto his pillow, exhausted.
"I'll do my best to watch over her," Steve promises. He's the only one that Tony will let into the room, trying to stay away from the others, still hoping the illness can be contained. They have no medicine; Steve can't offer him anything except words as comfort.
"All the shit I've done, and lived through...I never thought I'd go like this." Tony laughs incredulously, his fevered eyes casting about helplessly. "Who dies this way? Who dies of the flu?"
Everyone, Steve thinks.
*******
Clint takes care of most of the hunting and also sets snares around the woods for rabbits. He and Natasha agree that the ammunition for the guns must be saved at all costs, but his arrows can be reused if he is careful. Two days after Tony gets sick he brings down a good sized deer with his bow while he and Steve are out walking the perimeter of the woods.
"You're good at this," Steve observes, watching Clint field dress it with quiet efficiency. "Did you ever hunt? You know...before?"
"Not animals," he answers grimly, running his fingers along the brown fur for a moment.
It's a large doe, and Steve doubts they will be able to eat all the meat before it starts to go bad. "Do you know how to go about drying some of the meat?" he asks as they lift the carcass and head back to the house. "So we can try to preserve it?"
"What for?" Clint asks dully.
He's been coughing all morning.
*******
Steve, Natasha, and Pepper hover together watching the news, or what passes for it these days, on Tony's phone. The bluish glow from the screen illuminates the women's strained faces, bringing out the shadows in them, making them appear sickly. Europe and Asia are reporting massive deaths. Estimates are that as much as three fourths of the world's population is already gone or going, almost all of them children, the elderly, and anyone who was previously infirm in any way.
Natasha keeps glancing at the door. Clint had gone out after dinner, saying he was going to check the traps, maybe hunt some more. But he'd left his bow behind and has been gone for hours now.
*******
Pepper is asleep in the hallway, curled up outside of Tony's door.
Natasha is watching out the window, her face unreadable and her back ramrod straight.
Clint hasn't come back.
Steve wipes the sweat from Tony's head and neck the best he can. His fever is always worse in the evenings and today it's the highest yet.
Tony calls out for Jarvis and Steve grabs the phone, thinking he wants to hear the voice of the artificial intelligence he created. Then he realizes that Tony is actually calling out for Edwin Jarvis, who'd been the family's long time butler, who'd probably cared for Tony when he was sick as a child. Steve strokes Tony's hair and wishes for the millionth time that Howard Stark had been a better father.
*******
Clint returns, almost four days after he'd left.
Natasha's silent, angry tears are more accusatory than any amount of shouting could be as she grabs handfuls of his shirt and pulls him forcibly inside. Clint stumbles forward, his balance precarious, and Steve reaches out quickly to steady him. His face reminds Steve of soldiers he'd seen in the War--shadowed and pale and shuttered.
"Sit down," Steve says, pulling him to the couch, Clint following obediently. "What happened to you? God, we've been so worried."
Clint touches a finger to a strap across his chest, to a backpack that Steve, in his relief, had failed to even notice. He doesn't do anything else, just sits passively while Steve carefully works the bag off his shoulders and unthreads it from his arms. Inside are dozens of pill bottles--fever reducers and anti-inflammatories, vitamins, dark orange prescription bottles with names Steve does not recognize.
"Where did you get these? How?"
Clint looks up at him then, his eyes hollow and fever bright. "You don't get to ask me that," he says, his voice rough, as though he's been coughing nonstop. Or screaming. "I got them. You don't get to ask me how."
*******
Natasha wants to help, but Steve won't allow it, tells her to stay away.
Clint has the flu.
Steve wrangles him into the tub and washes him up the best he can--he's grimy from days of walking and sleeping outdoors, bleeding from an assortment of nasty cuts and abrasions. His fever is so high that the tepid water feels freezing and painful against his skin, but Steve doesn't think that is the only reason that Clint shakes violently, his arms wrapped tightly around his drawn up knees.
"What happened out there?" Steve asks gently. He works one of Clint's hands free and runs a washcloth carefully over the raggedly torn knuckles. "What did you see?"
"Everyone is dead," Clint whispers. "Or dying. And those that aren't--" He doesn't finish the thought, just buries his face against his knees, snatching his hand away and winding his arm around the back of his head. "Desperate. Frantic. Carrying dead children. People fighting like animals. And me, too. I was the worst one."
"Shhh," Steve soothes, leaning forward to hug him as tightly as he dares. "It's going to be okay. Somehow it's all going to be okay, I promise."
"I didn't take all of it," Clint insists, his voice wavering a little, teeth chattering. "Just enough so Tony can live. So that he can still be here...when...it's over."
"You took care of things; you kept your promise. Alright? You're home now and you can rest."
*******
Steve puts him in bed with Tony.
"Pepper?" Tony asks with groggy hopefulness, even though his eyes are open and looking right at Clint's pinched, sleeping face.
"No," Steve says. "It's Clint; he's come back." He shakes three ibuprofen into his palm, holds them out to Tony. "Take these, they'll help."
Tony scoops them into his mouth with trembling fingers, then spills half the water from the glass down his shirt, even with Steve's hand steadying it. "Is it the cure? Did Bruce find it after all?"
"Not yet," Steve tells him. "But he will."
*******
The next day Natasha boils water at the stove, watching the pot with as much focus as if she would have in the field, waiting for a mark to show. Steve comes over and leans against her a little, touching the length of his arm to hers.
She doesn't look at him. "Pepper is getting sick."
"Oh." She'd held out so long that Steve had thought maybe she was immune. But of course not. Of course she isn't. He casts a furtive glance at Natasha, wondering if she'll be next. If they'll all die one by one while he can't do anything but watch it happen. She sighs, as if reading his mind
"I was pretty sure, but now I know. I won't get it. The Red Room...what they did..." Natasha shrugs a little, then turns to face him. "I'm no supersoldier, but neither am I a Pepper Potts. I won't catch it. I won't die of the flu."
She sounds so certain that Steve believes her. "I'm glad."
Her smile back is bitter. "Looks like the mighty will inherit the earth instead of the meek, huh, Cap? Do we and the other immune start again, raise new pillars of society on the skeletons of billions?"
"Let's just take care of our loved ones for as long as we can," he suggests. "And then we'll worry about what happens next."
Natasha turns her attention again to the bubbling water. "Yeah. Alright."
*******
"How are you, Bruce?"
He's so grateful for Tony's Starkphone. Designed and built by the cleverest man on the planet, it never loses power, never lets them down. It's their lifeline to an outer world, one that might be failing but also one where Bruce and Thor and others still work to save them, and without it Steve thinks he might have lost his mind already.
"Okay." There's a lot of weight in that statement, a lot unsaid. Probably as much as Steve isn't saying. "How is everyone there?"
"Tony, Clint, and Pepper are sick." Steve hates the way his voice catches; the last thing he wants to do is make things harder on Bruce. "Natasha and I are taking care of them the best that we can."
"Are they--" Bruce starts to say, but Steve interrupts.
"Any progress?"
"We're getting close, I think." But he doesn't sound happy, only exhausted.
"Thank God for that."
"Yeah." Bruce doesn't say anything for a long time. "Jane Foster is dead. So is Nick Fury."
"Jesus." Steve sits down hard. He thought somehow they would be spared. That they wouldn't die, because they were his, because he needed them. There's the sudden terror of realization that Tony will probably be next. Then Clint. Then Pepper. That he will live on, but in a world without any of them in it. "How is Thor?"
"Well, Steve, how do you think he is?"
He thinks Thor probably isn't doing well. Not doing well at all.
*******
Now that everyone is sick and they're convinced that Natasha is immune, they don't bother with isolation anymore. Steve moves all of the furniture out of the living room and two of the king sized beds into it. They pile up in different configurations, drawing comfort from one another.
Everyone seems happier. Easier. Calm. But they also appear more resigned, and that Steve cannot abide.
He needs them to keep fighting.
"I'm not going to die in this bed," Tony murmurs, his forehead pressed to Pepper's, fingers reaching back to stroke her hair. It's tangled and dirty, but he doesn't notice. "I refuse. I decline. When the time comes I'm going to put on the Iron Man suit and fly as fast and as high as I can. Gonna bury myself in the stars."
Clint smiles at him and then looks to Natasha. "I always hoped I would die holding your hand, and Phil's."
"I know that. I promised, didn't I? All those years ago I promised, and haven't forgotten." She pushes sweat soaked hair away from his forehead. "I'm sorry that it can't be how you wanted now. That Phil has already gone on ahead."
"It's okay." He grabs at the hand running through his hair and pulls it to his chest. "I can go to sleep with my hand in yours, then wake up somewhere else and reach for his. Maybe that's even better."
"Enough!" Steve snaps, and they all look over at him in surprise. "We're not talking about this anymore." He glares at Natasha, angry that she's encouraging and engaging in this sort of morbid conversation. "Let's think instead about how you're all going to live. How we're going to start again. After."
Natasha nods curtly and looks away. Pepper closes her eyes, leans into Tony.
*******
Natasha checks the snares, brings back a rabbit. It's a scrawny thing, but that's alright; no one has much of an appetite anyore. She makes broth for their sick teammates while she and Steve cook and devour the meat, chewing methodically and not talking.
Steve gets more water from the lake and washes out their clothing and bedsheets, hangs them up on the line that he and Tony ran between some trees weeks ago. They'll dry quickly; it's a sunny, breezy day. It's quiet, too, the only sounds he hears are those of nature--no speedboats buzzing by, no voices chatting to one another from inside the house, no planes droning overhead.
He wonders if the planet will be better off without people around. Imagines tree roots cracking through highways and parking lots, animals marking out territories in old buildings. Once manicured lawns and athletic fields returning to tall grass and wildflowers. The few people that survive huddling together, telling their children of the way things had been in the old days, when cars and trains crisscrossed the land while planes and Iron Men flew above. How the world had been a thing of wonders and dreams and nightmares--all at the same time--until everything fell apart.
*******
Tony seems to be getting a little better. The waves of fever come further apart, don't spike as high. He still sleeps too much and is terribly weak. The danger hasn't passed, but for the first time in weeks Steve allows himself to think that Tony might make it. He doesn't dare voice the idea aloud, not even to Natasha. It feels too fragile, as if Tony might still be snatched away if Steve lets himself hope too much.
Pepper is still in the beginning stages of the flu, coughing and achy and quietly miserable. She and Tony stay wrapped up around one another, murmuring comforting words, exchanging a lot of I love you's. Tony watches her with wide, frightened eyes, his fingers gripping her clothes and blankets. Steve doesn't know if watching Tony die would have been worse than watching Tony be forced to see her die.
Clint is deep into his illness and has seizures when his fever gets high. Steve and Natasha can do nothing but wait for them to pass and try to comfort him after. She grinds up acetaminophen pills and dissolves them in water, and spends hours spooning the mixture carefully into his mouth in tiny amounts as he lays unconscious.
Steve carries him into one of the back bedrooms; he doesn't want Tony and Pepper to see Clint suffer, to be made any more afraid than they already are. He feels guilty, hiding their friend away like a dirty secret as they wait for him to die. Every hour of fever, every seizure--Steve is sure that it's the end.
But it isn't.
*******
The phone rings, startling Steve badly. It has been silent so long that he'd almost forgotten about it.
"I am coming," Thor says. His voice is so subdued and different that Steve doesn't recognize him at first. "Tell me how to find you."
*******
Thor gives Natasha tubing and a few IV bags and she disappears quickly to Clint's room. He hands a bag to Steve to hang and expertly uses a needle to find a vein in Tony's wrist. It's a new skill for Thor, but one he does with an ease that speaks to a lot of recent practice. He lays his large hand on Tony's cheek for a moment when the inventor opens his eyes.
"Thor. You're here. Did you bring us an Asgardian miracle after all?"
"No," Thor says solemnly, "a human one." He runs an alcohol swab over Pepper's hand. "Once upon a time, a brilliant young man was questing and foolish, exploring reaches of science beyond his peers, and became something he did not intend. He became a creature who was so strong and powerful and frightening that he was cast away and shunned. Then he met a group of people who were also different, and when they became a family he grew even stronger than before. Strong enough that when the world began to crumble, he marshaled all his powers--the one granted to him by his Creator, and the ones he created for himself--and saved them all."
Tony smiles. "Bruce. Bruce Banner."
*******
Steve and Thor find Natasha laying beside Clint, her eyes on the medicine steadily dripping into his bloodstream. Thor climbs into the bed with them and curls up around the archer protectively. Natasha reaches carefully across Clint's stomach to hold Thor's hand.
"Jane is gone," he says softly. "Her spirit just...slipped away. I couldn't hold onto it."
"You have us," Steve tells him. "We're still here, still alive, still together. Hold onto us."
*******
Humanity started to fall, but rallied to save itself.
No one estimates anymore how much of the world's population died; it had been almost everyone. There is nothing to do now but try to pick through the ashes and discover what is left. American survivors have begun flocking slowly to New York and other key locations, grouping up to begin anew.
They remain at the lake house another few days, and maybe should stay longer, until they were all strong enough to return to the city, but Tony insists that they go now. He's determined to reconnect with Bruce and what's left of SHIELD, and the others finally agree.
Natasha flies the jet, Steve beside her in the cockpit, both hopeful and apprehensive at the same time. Tony and Pepper hold hands, murmuring about arc reactors and how to convert Tower living spaces to hold the maximum amount of people. Thor sits with his arm around Clint, who rests against him, still so weak that he can't sit up without support. Every once in awhile he shifts uneasily and Thor pats him gently until he falls back asleep.
"Hey, Steve and Natasha," Tony's voice drifts forward. "Either of you know anything about farming?"
"I'm from Brooklyn," Steve points out, and Natasha just rolls her eyes at the question.
"So I guess that's a 'no'," Tony observes with the subdued cheer that passes for happiness these days. "That's fine, we'll find someone from the heartland. And there are books. We'll get it sorted--what crops grow fastest, what can feed the most people while being shipped over large distances. It'll be most efficient to focus only on produce instead of livestock at first," he adds, "as far as energy gain versus expenditure. Bruce'll be happy; everyone will have to be vegetarian, at least until Clint gets stronger and starts taking out the deer population."
Steve turns around in his seat to smile back at Tony. "Planning us out a whole new world, huh?"
"No," Tony says firmly. "It's going to be our world, the good old familiar one. The one that kept chugging right along while it waited for us to sort ourselves out. And we did. Humanity gets a second chance. A do-over. And, Cap, do you know what happens when humanity get a do-over?"
"No, what happens?"
"We do better."
*******