𝐇𝐎𝐏𝐄 || ( endgame )

↳ chapter eleven

↳ grief and loss

monday

a few days later and nothing special had happened. the avengers had held a memorial for nat, but that was mostly it.

tony and bruce worked on finishing the gauntlet and tried testing it, before another snap could make things worse.

steve forced evi to go back to school, which was as boring as ever, but atleast she could stare at peters face when she walked through the halls

nat's death hit her harder than she had initially thought. maybe because all the other deaths of people she loved were so sudden too.

there was no time. no time to say goodbye or to try and fix things. it's not like she wasn't used to it by now, but that didn't help much while grieving.

"i'm home" she called when she walked back into the flat. quickly noticing that steve wasn't home at the moment. he was probably at the compound, while he had told her she should take a break, and take some time to grief a woman that had almost been family to her.

surprisingly evi took that advice. normally she would be there any waking second, pushing to finally use the gauntlet, which she did at first, but now she was just tired.

losing people like that frustrated her. as if nothing she could do would prevent her friends and family from dying.

doctor cole called that 'trauma response'. she said it was a natural reaction, after losing so many people in such horrible ways, all while witnessing most of these deaths.

doctor cole also claimed that evi was one of the hardest patients she had ever met. while she had all throughout her life experienced so much trauma, she seemed to be alright most of the time.

hannah cole knew that that wasn't the whole truth, but she could see that evi hard learned to cope with these things alone. so she tried to remind her as often as she could, that she had a family now. her father, steve and a pretty awesome safety net consisting of the avengers.

it's not like evi didn't know that. it was just hard to get used to. to someone being there..

she walked into her room, to put down her bag. taking out her books and putting them onto the table. she had searched her room for pictures she had taken of nat, and put them to rest against the wall, right on her desk.

most of them were funny and they both looked terrible one them. a few had been from nat's past birthday. them both being dressed in fancy cocktail dresses while the boys wore suits.

a silent tear made it's way down evi's cheek and she wondered what had happened if it hadn't been nat and clint who went.

she knew clint. she knew that he hadn't just let nat jump. he wasn't like that. she wasn't either. they had probably fought to the last second. nat was just stubborn sometimes.

evi spend the rest of the day in her room. not ready to go out there. not even into the living room. not today. baby steps.

she shook her head while she looked at herself in the mirror. she looked like a mess. her long red locks passing well down to her waist. her eyes tired, filled to the brim with tears. dark circles under them, indicating how bad she had slept these past few days, being haunted by nightmares.

it seemed that every single loss she experienced, triggered the other ones back to the surface, making her relive them again.

although these bad things, there had been a few positives as well. for example steve's note. that he had shown her, even if she had written it herself.

it was just amazing to know, that eight years ago steve rogers had saved a little girl, who didn't want to be saved. and years later that same girl made sure that he would come and take her. it was ironic, wasn't it? but time was never an easy concept

also that she had been able to see pietro and wanda in a long time, even if she now couldn't remember what he looked like anymore, at least she got her memories back. and as soon as wanda would come back from the blip, she would know that she wasn't alone anymore. she still had family here.

evi climbed under the covers of her bed. nudging into her pillows. she thought about nat and how she had grown attached to her. and that she hadn't been able to say goodbye or tell her how much she had loved her. she promised herself that she would change that with the other avengers.

and then she just cried.

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