A/N: This is an odd little idea, tags/missing scenes from a movie I haven't seen yet, "Captain America: Civil War." Bits are based on what I know about the comics, the movie trailers and the movie cast list.

The original idea was born before the "Civil War" movie was even announced, back when Winter Soldier came out. There was a lot of talk about how Chris Evan's contract would run out before Sebastian Stan's and how the movies had now introduced two characters — Sam and Bucky — who have been Cap in the comics. And — Spoiler! — I read Steve gets killed in the Civil War comics (though, in true comics fashion, he doesn't stay dead.)

Pretty sure you all know I'm a Cap girl. I feel for Steve who's had such a rotten deal all his life, so I don't want Steve to die. Even if Chris wants to move on and someone else needs to play Cap, I don't want Steve to die! So I began thinking of alternates. Have faith because, no matter what it looks like, these are ways for Steve not to die.

You have to see these scenes as part of a larger movie (or series of movies). Try to imagine seeing this on the big screen, and don't leave the theater before the end credits are done.

Disintegrated

Under orders from the government, Stark's Avengers, the authorized team, pursued Captain America's rebellious crew but with less than total enthusiasm. Their primary goal was to capture Bucky Barnes, aka the Winter Soldier, who was wanted for blowing up the United Nations.

Cap insisted that Bucky had been framed by an impostor and refused to turn his friend over. That led to a warrant for Steve's arrest, too, which split the Avengers team. Vision chose his creator's side, but could not bring himself to fight the other Avengers. He stayed at headquarters to coordinate the search as only a computer mind could do.

Rhodey stood by his oldest friend and Natasha reluctantly sided with Tony. She hoped superhero registration would prevent another Sokovia, but she was sad to be opposing both her partners. The mysterious Black Panther offered his help to Stark as well. He had been at the U.N. when it was attacked and had seen the masked, silver-armed bomber for himself.

Sam and Clint sided with Cap for more personal reasons. Clint refused to register and expose his family, and he didn't believe Bucky was responsible for his acts while brainwashed. Sam believed in Cap and knew Bucky was innocent of the U.N. bombing. He did not believe the former Winter Soldier would get a fair trial with the current backlash against enhanced people. Wanda chose Cap's side simply because she could never choose Stark's.

The battle between the Avengers was carefully orchestrated by their enemies. Believing they could find evidence of Bucky's innocence, Cap's team was lured to a box canyon of sorts, where four- and five-story industrial buildings lined a street that dead-ended at the foot of a towering cliff.

Iron Man's team was given the information about Cap's location.

But the men who had arranged the whole frame-up had already dispatched their assassin, their pseudo-Winter Soldier, to destroy the Avengers — all the Avengers. He had plenty of time to prepare the killing ground before Cap's team showed up and Tony's pursued.

Waiting with limited patience, the sniper rubbed his gloved hand over his weapon lovingly. It was a perfect Avengers killing rifle, Hydra made, fully charged with Terreract energy. With the Tesseract gone, it couldn't be recharged, but it would last long enough.

The assassin scowled at the battle below. He was supposed to wait until the two teams of Avengers had decimated each other, then pick off the remainder. But the fools were still trying to talk each other down. The battle was more like sparring than combat. The sniper found it highly annoying.

As the assassin's patience reached the breaking point, one of the architects of his suffering moved into range. Disobeying his instructions, the man shifted his weapon to follow.

Iron Man and Captain America were dueling, playing a high speed version of dodgeball, but the others had all unwittingly moved around the corner into the kill zone.

Living up to his code name, Hawkeye spotted the glint of sunlight on metal from the roof above. The sliver of light shifted in a pattern Clint recognized, as a rifle barrel turned in Natasha's direction.

"Down!" he yelled, and tackled Natasha, a move she hadn't been expecting because it was suicidal. It put Clint's head within striking distance of her elbow, which could easily have been a killing blow.

Natasha struck by reflex, but even reflex couldn't force her to kill her longtime partner. The blow only knocked Clint unconscious.

When thought caught up to instinct, Natasha had a split second to wonder why he had made such a foolish move, then half the car beside her vanished with a whump of imploding air.

For a frozen moment, Natasha beheld the interior of a bisected car, crucifix dangling from the real view mirror, loose change spilling out of a severed center console. Then she grabbed Clint and rolled the two of them over and over behind the next car as the first whumped out of existence entirely. She desperately kept rolling, hauling Clint's unconscious form with her, as cars vanished in bursts of angry red light. She saw they would fetch up against a fire hydrant in a moment, exposed to this terrifying weapon. She might be able to escape, but she couldn't leave Clint behind.

The rattle of gunfire interrupted her thoughts. With a scream like his namesake, Falcon swooped down on the rooftop sniper, a semiautomatic tearing divots from the building.

But the sniper had a perfect nest, a little concrete doghouse with an opening just big enough to shoot from. Sam couldn't even see the man inside, so he aimed at the entrance, trying to disable a hand or send a lucky ricochet in the opening.

But it was a tiny target at his speed. The sniper was a cool one. Sinking deeper into his hole until Sam came back for a second pass. He fired as Sam jinked to one side.

Natasha saw the blast this time, a beam of red that just touched the sip of Sam's wing. It flared like a balloon, then popped, biting a neat circle out of the wing.

Falcon pinwheeled toward the ground, out of control.

War Machine roared out of the sun to catch his opponent and his friend. He had to slow to match velocities with Sam, which let the sniper get a bead on him. The weird red beam snapped out as War Machine began to turn and it snipped Rhodey's left leg off.

He fell with a scream, going into shock as Friday tried to stabilize the armor with just one boot jet. The flying Avengers tumbled toward their death, but a scarlet cushion rose up and surrounded them, lowering them safely to the ground beside Natasha and the unconscious Clint. Wanda stood over all her friends protectively, hands raised.

A red blast from the roof struck her scarlet wall and was absorbed.

"Rhodey!" Tony's hoarse call preceded his arrival beside his oldest friend.

"The armor is acting like a tourniquet," Natasha said calmly, as she checked the three injured men. "But he needs a hospital now!"

Iron Man looked uncertainly at the two other victims. "You can't carry us all," Sam groaned, clutching a broken arm. "Rhodey needs help the most. Jet, man. Fast as you can!"

"I'll be back," Tony vowed.

Iron Man scooped his friend into his arms and shot out from behind Wanda's protective wall faster than the sniper could track, especially when bullets began to hit the wall in front of him.

Cap! Get back!" Natasha shouted. Cap and Iron Man had been battling around the corner, out of sight, until Tony heard Rhodey's scream over the comms. Cap naturally chased after Iron Man, but he didn't know what he was running into. Noneof his teammates had been able to warn him. Clint was out, Sam was down and Wanda was straining to protect them all.

Natasha caught her breath as the wicked red beam flashed toward Cap, and melted into that beautiful vibranium shield!

The Black Panther, who had been about to pounce on the Scarlet Witch from behind, instead took cover next to his teammate, the Black Widow.

"The sniper has a metal arm," the sharp-eyed hero growled. "It's the Winter Soldier."

"No," Scarlet Witch and Falcon said in unison.

Sam tapped his earpiece. "Barnes is climbing that building's far wall," he said, nodding at the building next to the sniper's perch. "He's going to come up behind the sniper, if we can buy him time."

Wanda couldn't see Panther's face, but she sensed his skepticism. "We said Winter Soldier was being framed," she pointed out, never taking her focus off her life-saving wall.

The sniper snapped his shots back and forth between Cap's vibranium shield and Wanda's energy shield. Cap moved forward cautiously, keeping his protection up.

The sniper turned his attention to Wanda, snapping shot after shot at the Avengers huddled behind Scarlet Witch. Orange red splashed across scarlet, making Wanda's energy field stutter.

She gritted her teeth, falling to her knees, but keeping her hands up and her focus on the protective barrier.

Gunfire pitted the edge of the roof, making the sniper duck back and taking some of the pressure off Wanda. Steve had claimed Sam's dropped weapon, but the angle was too steep for him to shoot into the sniper's nest.

The sniper recovered and aimed at Cap's feet.

"Can you use a bow?" Natasha asked Panther. "I know how to shoot, but I can't draw Hawkeye's bow."

"The spear is the traditional weapon of my people," Black Panther answered. "But I have experience with bows and arrows. But this is unlike any I've seen."

The Hydra weapon took a hunk out of the pavement. Cap rolled to safety, but he couldn't get to the others.

The sniper lined up a shot. But an explosion shook the wall below his perch. Black Panther stood behind Wanda, bow raised, a second explosive arrow arching over the energy field.

It blew a hunk out of the wall to the sniper's left.

"I wish I hadn't hit Clint so hard," Black Widow commented, as she prepared another arrow.

A red and gold blur shot down the street, inches from the building fronts, out of view of the sniper. When the vengeful Iron Man reached the sniper's building, he shot straight up.

"See how you like a face full of repulsors," he growled.

But the false Winter Soldier had carefully prepared the ground. He'd booby-trapped the wall below his perch. The shaped charge blasted Iron Man out of the air. He crashed to the ground on his back, momentarily stunned.

The Hydra rifle swung in his direction.

"Tony!" Steve yelled and threw his shield.

Iron Man caught it and the vibranium absorbed the blast.

But quick as a cat, the rifle turned on Cap. Steve dodged for cover. The first blast blew a hole in the pavement. Steve vaulted the crater and a second red beam struck him in mid-air. Steve was gone in a blinding flare of light.

Delayed by dismantling booby-traps, Bucky Barnes reached the roof just in time to see the destruction of his childhood friend.

"No!"

His metal arm ripped the concrete roof off the sniper's bunker. He grabbed the false Winter Soldier by the throat.

There was a crunch of shattering bones and the man was dead before Bucky threw him five stories to the ground. The body lay in a crumpled heap at Iron Man's feet, but Tony's eyes had never left the spot where Steve had vanished.

"Z'it over?" Clint mumbled, trying to sit up.

"It's over," Natasha said, her voice choked with grief.

Clint's gaze scanned the crowd, counting noses. "Where's War Machine and Cap?" he asked.

"Rhodey's hurt, but Cap … Steve's gone, Clint. He's gone."

As she helped her friend up, Natasha quickly explained about the red disintegrating light and recapped the battle action. Clint was shocked, because he'd missed it all.

Natasha went to the body and pulled off the mask. The man seemed vaguely familiar, but it took her a long moment to recognize the burned, scarred face.

"Rumlow!"

Sam and Clint stepped forward. "Rumlow," they confirmed.

"So this was Hydra again?" Sam asked.

Natasha just shook her head. She didn't have any answers … yet.

While the others limped to Tony's side, Bucky scrambled down the front of the building where the blast had cleared all booby-traps. But when he reached the ground, Bucky stood helplessly. There was no dead friend to mourn, no body to gather in his arms. Steve was just … gone.

Visor up, Iron Man staggered to his feet and reached for the shield with tears in his eyes.

"No!" Bucky shouted angrily. He shoved Tony to the ground and snatched up the shield himself. He held it close, rubbing his human hand comfortingly across the star.

"It doesn't belong to you!" Bucky shouted.

There were tears in the Soldier's eyes. "We believed in each other when no one else did, two ragged boys from Brooklyn. He believed in me still after I almost killed him. After 70 years of assassinations, he still trusted me. You say you were his friends," he yelled at the Avengers indiscriminately. "But you never believed in him. You killed him, you Judas!" he spat at Tony.

He started walking away, his gait uneven, as if he could hardly see through his tears, then he began to run, cradling the shield in his arms like a baby.

The Black Panther started after him, but Natasha held out her hand to stop him.

"Our orders were to catch the bomber," she reminded her team. She pointed down at Rumlow's body with the false metal arm and the Winter Soldier mask. "Our job is done. Brock Rumlow was the bomber. Brock Rumlow was the Winter Soldier."

One by one, the others nodded agreement. Tony Stark wept into his armored hands.

"Mr. Stark, do you have some words for the public now that the right side won?" Several microphones were shoved into Tony's face. He turned on the reporters with barely restrained violence.

"Steve Rogers is dead. There's nothing 'right' about this. Nothing at all." He stalked away, hunching his shoulders against the downpour. Behind him, the rain ran down the faces of the cemetery statues, as if all the angels were weeping.

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First end credit scene

Natasha was packing Cap's extra uniform into a box. She folded the uniform neatly, running gentle fingers over the star on the chest piece, before adding the rest of the gear. As she was about to put the lid on, alarms began to sound. She spun on her heel and ran out the door.

Across the room, the window exploded inward and a silhouetted figure climbed in and went to the box. A black-gloved hand splayed across Cap's star, then the lid went on the box and the man picked it up and turned to go. The dim light offered just a glimpse of a silvery arm and red, white and blue shield on his back as he slipped out the window.

A message on the screen reads: "Captain America will return in Avengers: Infinity Wars, Part 1."

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Second end credit scene

Steve Rogers' eyes snapped open and he sprang to his feet, crashing against an unseen wall. As he staggered back, he realized he's in a tube, like an exhibit in a lab.

An odd looking white-haired man stood before him. "Ah, Terra's only Super Soldier awakens. Such a unique exhibit you will make," the being said theatrically. "Welcome, captain. Welcome to the home of Taneleer Tivan, the Collector!"

While Steve is still gaping in confused disbelief, a voice behind him spoke in German-accented English.

"So, we meet again, captain, after all this time."

Steve spun around and saw, in another cage, the leering scarlet visage of the Red Skull.

The scene fades and a message reads: "Steve Rogers will return in Guardians of the Galaxy 2."

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Bonus scene from Guardians of the Galaxy 2

On Knowhere, Peter Quill prowled through the Collector's collection.

A voice said, "You look like you might be from Earth."

Quill looked around, but he'd passed the junction where the speaker noticed him. All he could see were distorted images of someone humanoid rising to his feet. "I was born on Terra," Quill confirmed, as he backtracked to where he can see the speaker. When he spotted the man, his jaw dropped. "You look like you might be Captain America!"

"I am Captain America," Steve confirmed. He was standing in a clear tube, just another exhibit in Taneleer Tivan's collection.

"How'd you get here?" Quill asked, flabbergasted to see the idol of his childhood locked in a space zoo.

"Apparently, I was kidnapped," Steve answered dryly. "How'd you get here?"

"Ditto," Quill said. "Have you been here since the 1940s?"

"No, 2016. It's a long story with aliens and battles and these things called Infinity Stones," Steve said with a sigh.

"Really? Me, too," Quill replied, perking up at the mention of Infinity Stones. He glanced down the aisle where Gamora was negotiating with the Collector, then he sat on the floor, settling himself against another exhibit case. "Gamora drives a hard bargain, so we have plenty of time. I'll tell you mine, if you tell me yours."

A/N: And the rest is up to the movies or your imagination. Next week, a different variation on this theme.

Oh, and according to Fanficiton, this is my 100th story posted. Yay, me!