It was over. They had lost. Steve couldn't believe it. After everything they had gone through, they had still lost. His best friends, Sam and Bucky, gone. In a blink of an eye. Bucky right in front of his eyes. No preparation, no warning, just "Steve" and then he was gone. Just like that. No one had even seen Sam disappear. Just maybe the pile of ash he had left behind.

Steve gently set Vision's body down on the table in Shuri's lab. The young woman was sitting in the corner, no doubt morning her brother, who was one of the victims of the gauntlet. It was also impossible to think now, she was the ruler of Wakanda. He couldn't even begin to imagine how she was feeling.

He sat down in one of the chairs around the room, choosing the one next to Rhodey. The air force colonel still had his suit on with the helmet pulled back. He was leaning forward with his head in his hands, obviously thinking hard about something. Steve looked over to see the others around the room, Thor, sitting on the ground next to the talking racoon that he had come to earth with. He was gently petting its head in what seemed to be a comforting manner. Natasha and Bruce were holding each other tightly, their faces buried in the other's shoulder, not a word said between them. Okoye was next to Shuri, quietly talking to her as she cleaned the younger girl's wounds. M'Baku was standing off to the side, guarding the doorway, on edge from the battle earlier. The were definitely a sad sight to see.

"Where's Tony?" came a mumble from next to him.

Steve looked over at Rhodey, who was staring straight ahead, his hands hanging. "What do you mean Rhodey?" Steve questioned.

The other hero looked over at him. "Where's Tony?" he asked again. "We haven't seen him since this started. Where is he? Is he-" Rhodey choked up some, not able to finish his sentence.

Steve looked at him sadly. "I don't know. I can't answer that for you. We can only hope that he's still…" Even he couldn't bare to finish that train of thought. It was just too painful.

Despite their falling out, and that Tony hadn't reached out for help or to even talk, the captain still cared deeply for him. He may have made some mistakes, and was rather annoying some days, but he was a good man overall, that just wanted to do good in the world. Steve had seen some of the news and knew that Tony and Pepper were officially engaged and planning their wedding.

God, Steve thought, leaning forward and putting his head in his hands, running his fingers into his hair, what about Pepper? What if Pepper was one of the ones that had vanished? What if she hadn't and Tony had? How would they tell her? It was just too much for them to truly have to deal with. There was just too much loss today to deal with.

Steve only lifted his head when he heard a soft voice call "Steve." It was Natasha. She and Bruce had unwrapped themselves from each other and were looking at him. He vaguely noticed that the others in the room turned towards him, acknowledging that he was the one in charge. "What do we do?" Her voice cracked at the end of the sentence.

He had never seen Natasha like this. She had always been so strong, and brave. Never showed emotion. Now, she wore her heart on her sleeve. It terrified him.

He looked at all of them. The group looked so worn and beat up. They suddenly had the entire weight of the galaxy on their shoulders. They had failed to stop the Mad Titan and trillions were dead because of that. He looked at their red eyes, and serious expressions. "I- I don't know," he managed to get out. "We've all lost so much and I don't think there is a way to get it all back. I- I can only imagine how you all feel. I watched as my best friend d-" Tears were falling down his face as a sob built up in his throat. He couldn't even say it aloud. He had lost Bucky again and he couldn't even give him enough respect to just say it. His eyes squeezed shut as he finally let the dam break. His whole body shook as he stood, sobbing, his fist clenched at his sides.

Steve had no idea how long he stood there before he felt a pair of arms wrap around him. The arms were strong, muscular, like his. He knew it was Thor. The god understood his pain. The loss that he had recently experienced was still fresh on his mind too. They were two sides of the same coin really. Both had lost the man they saw as their brother three times each. The first two were not really, but this last time, was it oh so real and permanent. There was no coming back from it at all.

Slowly, more arms found him. These were smaller, more feminine. He couldn't tell who it was until he looked up. It was the new monarch of the country, her eyes bloodshot from all the crying she had done since learning her brother was gone. She felt their pain too. She had just lost her brother, and now had a whole country on her shoulders, plus the guilt of failing the galaxy. She looked him dead in the eye as more tears came down her face. Steve lifted his arm and wrapped it around her, pulling her close to him so that she was in both of the men's embraces.

The pain was just so much. Everyone could feel it rolling off of Steve in waves, even with Shuri and Thor wrapped around him in their embrace. He hadn't been this sad and upset since Peggy had died, but he hadn't been as emotional about it since Bucky had fallen from Zola's train, all those years ago. That was the awful thing about the pain of loss. It was there, constantly, from the moment you lose them and on. There was no remedy for it, nothing to make it better, to ease the suffering.

But the worst part of it was that it demanded to be felt.

And they stood there. And mourned.

The next day, there was a memorial for all those that they had lost and for the ones that they didn't know about. Suddenly, there was a lot of thought and reaching out to people they had lost contact with, to check if they were alive, and well. Or if they had been reduced to the same fate that they had seen happen before them. Natasha reached out to Clint, Steve to Scott, and they both tried for Fury. They had yet to receive any responses.

The memorial was hosted in Wakanda, with Shuri and the queen mother leading it. Their country had lost the most. Safety, their warriors, their leader and it had all been in vain. They had failed. But the day wasn't to focus on that. It was to focus on the bravery of all those who had been lost. Who gave their lives, and fought so hard to stop Thanos. They were going to remember them as how the lived, not at the failure that happened to be the end for them.

They sang songs, many Wakandan, but there were others from other places in the world, and even other time periods. Steve cried when the people around him sang Bucky's favorite song from the 40s. He couldn't believe that Shuri knew what it was and decided to have the crowd sing it in his memory. Thor even led them in an Asgardian song in honor of his people that he had lost.

They had a huge feast too. Everyone was talking, there were some laughs and a lot of storytelling. Stories of how this person decided to do this or what they had done and that person had yelled at them in return. It didn't matter if the person lost was bad or not, good or evil. All they had left were the memories of them. Even if many of them were bittersweet, it felt better to hang onto the good times, instead of the bad. To remember the pleasant things, to smile and laugh, to forget for a moment that the one they were talking about was gone.

By the time they ended, it was well into the night, with a bonfire that was finally shrinking due to people returning home to sleep and mourn some more. The last ones around it were the heros. They sat there, watching the fire as it grew smaller. Finally, someone spoke up. "I remember," Natasha said, leaning back on her log, "one time same decided it would be a good idea to prank me…" She proceeded to tell them what he did and what she did to him in retaliation.

After that, Bruce spoke up about about Tony and how after Tony had gone through everything with the Mandarin, he proceeded to Bruce everything, as if the man were a therapist. "I mean, it was a horrible idea!" he said, laughing. "What if i go too angry and the Hulk decided to come out and play?" There were laughs going around as he talked.

And that's how it went. Everyone started to share little stories about the ones they had lost. What they got mad at them about, something so unbelievably dumb they decided to do, how they had changed their lives, for better or for worse. How much they loved and missed them. They just kept talking, not wanting to let the night end, making them part and go back to their nightmares that were sadly true.

In the end, they all fall asleep around the fire. One by one, they fell asleep as someone else talked. First it was Tasha, who was curled up with Banner on the ground. Next was Rhodey, who was resting on a pillow/blanket bed they had made for him to rest his legs. Rocket went not to long after that, leaning his head on Thor's beefy arm. Thor followed him leaning his head back on the log as a pillow. Bruce fell asleep stroking Natasha's hair, giving her comfort as they both slept. Shuri fell asleep with her head in Steve's lap and her legs by Rhodey's on his makeshift bed.

Steve was the last one to fall asleep. He looked over at the people around him. They were all in pain, hurting because of what Thanos had done. It was so hard to accept that their loved ones were gone and not coming back. At least, no way they could come back that they could think of. He watched as sometimes a face would twist into a grimace, their dreams being nightmare, before someone next to them would stir slightly, as if sensing their distress. The expression would ease instantly. It brought a small, sad smile to the blonde man's face.

All of them had been broken, but they found comfort in one another. It may not have been the one they were reaching for, but it was someone who shared their grief. Someone who understood their pain and didn't want them to feel that pain anymore.

He knew that in the next few days, they would start planning. They would plan on how they would go about finding Thanos and making him pay for what he did. They would plan on finding a way to reverse what he had done and, hopefully, bringing back those who were gone. They would plan on how to tell the world what they were doing and preventing it from falling too much farther into chaos then it probably already was.

But that was tomorrow. Not today.

Steve fell asleep, knowing that at least tomorrow was a new day.