selene // thor odinson

XXIII

avengers hq

present day

My breathing was hollow when my feet returned back to the platform, legs stiffening from the abrupt impact. Adrenaline was still coursing through my body from the small yet unexpected fight I had to give. My body was shaking the slightest amount and my fingers were itching, wanting my blade back in my hands. My head ached too. Sharp pains splintered my mind every so often as I was still feeling the shift of space and time yet it was nothing too severe. My eyes were still a little blurred as my helmet popped away.

I glanced at the team standing on the platform, a smile blossoming onto my face as I looked around the circle. I noticed the bright Stones that were in their hands, and my heart picked up, we were successful, we retrieved the Stones, we can bring everyone we lost back to us.

My grin seemed ever growing as my eye set on each person until someone was missing.

"Did we get them?" asked Bruce.

"Are you telling me this'll actually work?" said Rhodey.

But I didn't have the heart in me to respond as I made my way towards Clint and dropped to my knees, getting to his level as he sat with his head dropped into his stomach. My hands trembled as I laid my hand on his shoulder, part of me already knowing what had happened but I didn't want to assume, didn't want to admit it before hearing it from him.

When I moved towards him, it was then when the others had finally noticed. There was a deathly pause in the hubbub and excitement of the success of the mission but the true success began to be questioned.

"Clint, where's Nat?" Asked Bruce, the first one of us to be brave enough to ask.

Clint didn't say anything and my hand on his shoulder began to shake, his silence giving us everything that we needed to know.

He slowly raised his head and looked at me, tears pooling in his eyes and wet marks had already stained his face. He shook his head at me and all I could do was engulf him into a hug.

My heart felt numb as Tony, Steve, Bruce, Clint, Thor and I went out to the lakeside, the remaining original avengers. I was sitting on the bench in front of the water, staring as the setting sun glistened on the soft waves. It was the only thing that was keeping me sane in that moment. My mind was utterly blank. My eyes were bare and my cheeks were covered with dry tear marks. I propped my head on my hands as we all mourned in silence, saying over and over and over again in my mind what the reality was because I still couldn't believe it.

Natasha was gone.

And that left a gapping hole in my heart.

"Do we know if she had family?" Asked Tony in a low voice, sitting with his arms crossed tightly across his chest.

"Yeah," Steve said and I looked up expectantly, wondering if he knew what Natasha had told me. "Us."

I pursed my lips, unsure whether to reveal the information she had told me. It was confidential, said in secret, in a moment of heart. Telling them would be betraying that, betraying the trust that she had in me. It would be a different story if another person knew, and it seemed like they didn't so it was most definitely not my place to say anything, especially without her consent.

In that moment, as I stared over the water, mourning my close friend, I made a promise to myself. I promised that I would do absolutely everything in my power to find Natasha's family once we got everything back, to tell them the truth, because the truth is what they deserved.

"What? Wh-what are you doing?" Asked Thor as he stepped closer to Tony, hands on his hips with an annoyed expression on his face.

"Huh?"

"What are you doing?" questioned Thor.

"Just asked him a question," said Tony, turning to face Thor as the confrontation continued.

"Yeah, no, you're acting like she's dead."

"Thor. Don't." I tried with tiredness but my plea fell to deaf ears.

"Why are we acting like she's dead?" Thor continued, staring at us all. "We have the Stones, right? As long as we have the Stones, Cap, we can bring her back. Isn't that right? So stop this shit. We're the Avengers. Get it together."

"Can't get her back," said a voice, Clint. I turned to him to see that his gaze hadn't even left the spot ahead of him.

He'd not uttered a single word since he got back. He had lost his best-friend right in front of his eyes. But he was staying strong, because he knew this wasn't over.

"What's he...? What?" Thor stumbled, not letting it go, wanting to bring her back, not excepting the reality. I hung my head low, breathing in to calm myself down, wanting to have the hope that he had but knowing that it wasn't possible, she wasn't Snapped, we couldn't bring her back.

"It can't be undone," reiterated Clint. "It can't."

Thor laughed in disbelief and I ran my hands over my face. "Look, I'm sorry, no offence, but you're a very earthly being, okay? And we're talking about space magic. And 'can't' seems very definitive. Don't you think?"

"Yeah, yeah, I know," cut off Clint, turning to face Thor, waving his hands in frustration. "I know that I'm way outside my pay grade here. But she still isn't here, is she?"

"No, that's my point," said Thor and I got off the bench, walking over to them.

"It can't be undone," Clint said painfully, slowly, tears welling in his eyes as he looked at Thor.

I placed a hand on Thor's shoulder, telling him he needs to stop. We weren't there, Clint was. We had no choice but to trust him.

"Or that's at least what the red, floating guy had to say," Clint continued, his voice raising as his angry began to bubble. "Maybe you wanna go talk to him, okay? Go grab your hammer and you go fly and you go talk to him." Thor remained silent, we all did as we watched Clint swallow his emotion, bringing himself back to the ground. "It was supposed to be me. She sacrificed her life for that goddamn Stone. She bet her life for it."

"UGH!"

I tilted my neck, blinking back my tears at the outburst as Bruce grasped the bench I was sitting on and bolted it into the river in anger.

"She's not coming back," he said. "We have to make it worth it. We have to."

"We will," said Steve.

And I was going to do everything that I could to make sure it was.