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When her feet land in the familiar Avengers compound, Malka releases a sigh of relief, leaning over to take a few deep breaths. She'll have to set her nose which has started to numb, but she is back in her own time. Natasha will get a kick out of her adventures with Aura.
"Did we get 'em all?" Hulk asks as everyone's suits fall away.
"Are you telling me this actually worked?" Rhodes asks with a wide grin, holding up his own stone.
Malka glances around, frowning at Barton who stares ahead into space. What further induces her panic is the absence of their friend by his side. "Barton?" She calls out. When he falls to his knees, she slides across the platform to hold him up, keeping his face in her hands as she searches his vacant expression.
Tears fill his eyes, his chin trembling in her grasp. He inhales sharply as he meets her gaze and slowly shakes his head.
The force of her realization cracks her heart. For a moment, all Malka wants to do is walk away. All she wants to do is bury herself in rock like she did before and never leave. She could barely adjust to a world without her partner, without half of the world, and now she'll have to accept this loss too?
Instead, she purses her lips and lets her hands release his head to hold his hands between them, squeezing tightly as she relaxes and leans back on her feet.
"Clint, where's Nat?" She hears Hulk ask over her shoulder.
Silence answers him.
With a heavy sigh, Malka stands up and steels herself. "Give me fifteen minutes to set my nose and, uh, I can deal with the stones."
"Malka—" She does nothing to stop Tony from grabbing her elbow to hold her back from walking off the platform. "You don't have to do it alone."
"Oh, I'd very much like to," she replies. "That way we don't lose more of ourselves. That way, we, uh, we minimize the loses, if something terrible happens with the stones all together." Taking back her arm, Malka holds her nose as she walks away, gingerly grasping the bruised bridge.
She makes her way to the kitchen first. Two half-empty mugs of tea rest side by side on the counter. Malka's breath catches as she comes up to the counter, placing her hands on either side of the mug Natasha had used in the morning. Raking her hands across the table-top, the mug shatters on the ground by her feet as Malka lets her head hang low, tears blurring her vision.
Ten seconds. That is all she allows herself. Ten seconds to grieve. There is no more time left, she can't afford to spend more time on the woman she deemed close enough to be a sister.
Ten.
She met Natasha while hiding in Italy, trying to figure out who she was. Malka was confused and scared and alone, unable to find her partner and unable to accept her unsanctioned departure from her employers.
