BLACK WIDOW

#3

Everything hurt. She had taken a hit, sure. Her muscles were sore and overused, yes. But it was far for the reason why everything hurt the way it did.

It all happened so fast.

He wasn't here but five minutes before everyone was down. But besides that, they had won even quicker. The last stone had been destroyed.

Then the bastard cheated. How were they to know he could rewind time. And even after he cheated, Thor killed him. He drove his axe deep into his chest and killed him.

But that didn't stop it from happening.

You should have gone for the head.

The single sentence repeated in everyone's head like a mental disease.

You should have gone for the head.

They had lost. They failed and payed for it.

The room was horribly silent. Natasha looked around at the survivors.

Steve leaned against a wall, staring off into nothingness. Bruce was tinkering with some of Tony's gear. Rhodey joined him. Thor sat silently on one of the seats close to T'Challa's empty throne that not even the the crowned queen, Shuri would sit in. The talking raccoon that had accompanied Thor stayed close to him, too shy to mingle.

The general of the Dora Milaje, which Natasha learn her name was Okoye stood a still as statue behind her king's throne.

No words were exchanged. No eye contact was made. Everyone here had lost their other halves. Most of them again.

Natasha had lost James twice already. Steve lost him twice already. The raccoon considered the tree his son. He had already been down once. And Loki. God, what happened to Loki. Thor has already lost him twice before.

But bedsides all that: there was a time where Tony flew into space and they thought he may never come out. Thanos has turned that nightmare into a reality. She looked around at everybody and realized: they were all old.

All their bodies aged about thirty-five, even though that wasn't quite the case. Steve was a hundred. Natasha was nearly ninety, and Thor was who knows how old. And for Bruce and Rhodey, they were nearly fifty. How were they gonna could back and defeat this?

This was an all out affair. And they lost.

Were they going to come back and defeat this? Was it even an option? They had lost. But was it really for good?

Tears began to well in Natasha's eyes. They were earth's mightiest heroes. They were supposed to protect.

Everyone had came together. Rocket's group, the Guardians of the Galaxy. They couldn't even do that. Tony and the kid, Spider-Man went into space and never came back. Rocket's whole family was gone.

All the horrible emotions washed over her. This world had never done anything for her. But she was obliged to protect it, no matter how difficult the threat. No matter how hard the world made it. She was a fugitive now. They had made her a fugitive.

They only things that had treated her right in this world were Steve and James and.... Clint. She didn't even know it Clint was okay, what if he had turned to ash? What if his family had turned to ash.

Soon enough, she couldn't hold any tears. But she wasn't going to cry in front of the team.

She stood up and left the room and waited until she was out of the way before she started crying. She started to wonder how no one else was in this state, but she had seen Thor cry earlier. Steve will never cry. Rocket's too shy. Rhodey and Bruce hadn't really lost as much personally.