Disclaimer: The Avengers characters are not mine, just borrowed for this story.

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Warnings: language and violence. Main character death and death of children. If you are concerned or have any questions please message me.

Forlorn Hope

The world was quiet for once.

It was almost ironic since Thor himself was so loud and full of life despite the hardships that had befallen Earth. The few souls that had gathered looked down upon at their fallen warrior. Coulson wasn't sure where Stark had found Thor's cape, but it was fitting to send the god off looking like the king he should have been.

Natasha tapped her comm. unit, listening to the reports from the sentries still out in the field; there was no good news to attempt to balance out the sorrow she felt. As the report concluded, she turned to her fellow fighters, "We need to finish this, Zeke has eyes on an enemy patrol heading this way."

Stark nodded to the two men at the shore line and they pushed the pyre carrying the fallen warrior out towards the open water. "Didn't they use to set fire to these things?"

"Yes. An archer would light an arrow and set the pyre ablaze when it moved out to sea." Phil had to admit there was something so final about that action; that it was admitting that they really had lost Thor. The irony of his statement regarding the archer burned his throat in addition to the sorrow he felt over the loss.

"Yeah, well we're not calling him, so this will have to do," snapped Tony as he pulled a small bottle of booze from his coat pocket. Stuffing a handkerchief down the neck of the bottle he lit the end and flung the bottle with all his might towards Thor's body. The flames splashed over the pyre and engulfed it in its entirety.

Only Coulson, Romanoff and Stark stayed to watch the flames do their work. The few others that had boldly ventured to see their comrade laid to rest had left for the safety of the underground bunker. The three friends were silent as the fire slowly died and the remains of the once proud man they called Thor slowly sunk to the bottom of the ocean.

"I'm done with this crap," shouted Stark with a finality that suggested that the smile the man had always worn in the past had finally cracked and faded with time. The bitterness in his voice bit into his companions. The inventor stormed off in the opposite direction of home; his heavy footsteps leaving large indents in the soft earth and his irate mumbles floating in the wind.

"Let him go," said Natasha as she placed a hand on Phil's shoulder to stop him from following Tony. "He'll come back when he's ready. You know how he is."

Coulson nodded and followed behind Natasha. It was a long walk back to the bunker and night was closing in. There still was the advancing patrol to try and avoid as well. They kept their ears strained and eyes sharply searching the woods, the silence around them never soft enough for comfort, but never loud enough to know something was wrong. It kept them on edge, at all times, to the point where if you spent too much time away from the bunker, sanity would be hanging from a thin string. Whoever would have thought they would miss loud things such as traffic and crowded streets?

It was well after midnight when Coulson heard the sound of Stark'smutterings echoing up from his makeshift lab.

"I see you made it back," stated Phil who was trying to assess the condition of their leader. Before it would have been easier to say that they'd been through worse, but now that was the farthest thing from the truth. The war was taking a toll on all of them and he could see the man before him starting to come apart at the seams. It was happening to all of them, one attack at a time, but Stark was more important than most of them put together. One way or another he had to keep the man sane, even if that meant having awkward midnight conversations with a bitter drunk.

"Where else would I go? Loki has control over everything; it's not like we can hide anywhere else." They were the acidic ramblings of a drunk but neverthelesstrue.

They had lost contact with the other resistance cell several months back and one could only assume that Loki had been successful in wiping them out. It was a terrible thought that they were all that remained of the free humans. The death and destruction of the Chitauri invasion that started in New York had killed billions. Loki had made slaves out of those he decided to spare from death and over the years the number of freedom fighters haddwindled. Phil would never admit it out loud, especially after everything and everyone it had cost them, but they were fighting a losing battle.

They had started off with hope, even after the invasion had devastated SHIELD's numbers, hope that the human race was resilient enough to fight the alien infection now enveloping the planet. The first of many blows had been personal, as Loki personally ran his scepter through Director Fury on the Helicarrier, leaving the organization directionless. To Coulson's, and many other peoples' surprise, Stark rose to the occasion. Iron Man became the beacon in which to rally behind.

After losing New York, desperation set in, and Coulson and Romanoff went to try and get Banner to reconsider joining their cause. They needed a heavy hitter and who better than the Hulk to try and tangle with a crazed god? It wasn't an easy sell, but Phil had managed to appeal to some small seed of righteousness in Bruce. Earth's mightiest heroes: Stark, Banner, Romanoff and Thor, united to form the Avengers, because there was really nothing left to do but avenge the atrocities that Loki brought.

Thor had often claimed that if he could just find a way to pull his hammer from the stone in which it had been encased, he would be bestowed the powers of a god. Unfortunately, the hammer never budged, and the fairy tale of having a god fight on their side faded to dust.

Still they had a fighting force and a leader, so there was always the possibility they could win. The years of battle had slowly killed that hope as one by one, everyone around them started to succumb to the darkness and perish under Loki's gaze. Pepper had been killed during an attack at the SHIELD facility they were using as their base of operations. After that, Tony seemed to spend more time with a bottle than any of the people serving with him. Banner perished at the hands of Loki's general two years after that. The Hulk was no match for the well placed arrow through the eye. Banner finally found the release of death he had been looking for, though it was not at his hand but rather by the hand of someone who should have been their ally had Loki not twisted his soul when the god arrived in New Mexico.

Now Thor was dead as well. Loki had decimated Asgard and been hell bent on destroying the one reminder of his former world. It was a glorious battle, one befitting a warrior but still it was a friend who lost his life that day.

"What are we going to do Stark? We're running out of people and options." It wasn't said with criticism or anger but with genuine concern. Phil had promises to keep and failing now wasn't an option. There were other ways he wished he could address the subject, but desperation was creeping down on them all and he could not afford to be anything but blunt.

"You think I don't know that!" shouted Tony, the tone of his voice going from sorrowful to guilt and anger, as he swept his arm over the table, pushing the piles of research to scatter on the floor. Unaware, or perhaps uncaring of his creator's pain, DUMMY wheeled in and loyally began cleaning up the mess.

"Would you stop… don't, just leave the mess." It was frustrating trying to cause a scene only to have one of his inventions remove all evidence.

"Stark, leave the robot. We need a plan," Phil reiterated firmly, ignoring the dramatics that not even war could burn out of Stark.

Shrugging his shoulders, Tony paused, before reluctantly admitting, "I have an idea."

Phil followed him over to the large computer screen in the wall, made out of scrap and parts that belonged in something from decades ago, not to be used in something so innovative. Yet there is was; it never ceased to amaze the agent just what Stark could put together out of virtually tapped something out on the keyboard and the screen lit up displaying documents that Phil was very familiar with.

"Captain America, super soldier extraordinaire," declared Tony with a faint flare to his voice that Coulson had not heard in so long; it soothed due to the familiarity and ached with the truth that this used to be normal.

"I'm familiar with the project."

"Then you know the serum worked on him. He's the only one that the serum ever worked on. If we can recover the body, I'm pretty sure I can duplicate the serum and we can start giving our people superpowers."

"You want to create super soldiers?" Phil had read all the reports of people who had tried that idea and the disastrous results. Things must have reached a new level of desperate if Stark was willing to subject innocent people to potentially suffering the same horrors as Banner exposed himself to.

"Loki's kicking our ass. We need an edge if we're even going to survive to the end of the year. This could be our chance, you can't deny that Agent."

"There's just one problem, Howard never found Captain Rogers."

"True, dad did miss the mark with that one but I have his search data so we can eliminate those areas. Now I know that Fury had material pertaining to this project; perhaps there's something there that can help us narrow it down even more."

"There was a SHIELD storage facility around here. If Loki hasn't destroyed it, we might be able to retrieve the Captain America locker," informed Coulson, the risks involved in reaching the facility already weighing themselves in his mind, it could be bad; but as Stark had said, this could be their chance, their only chance.

Tony smiled, the wrinkles that were a part of his face crinkled in hope and perhaps even joy, instead of pain as they had over the last long years. "So we have a plan?"

"We have a plan," Phil concurred.