Avenge the Fallen • Endgame AU

Three

"The Fallen database," Maria Hill announced, pressing a key on Fury's laptop. "We updated it a few hours ago; it's still a work in progress."

Connected to the projectors in the Avengers Compound, it started showing the names, ages and addresses of everyone's friends and family, along with a photo of them on each slide.

ANTHONY EDWARD STARK
ROBERT BRUCE BANNER
NATASHA ALIANOVNA ROMANOFF
STEVEN GRANT ROGERS
CLINTON FRANCIS BARTON
THOR ODINSON
JAMES RHODES

Name after name after name, each of them a person that somebody in the room knew and cared deeply about. The list was agonizingly long and it didn't even include the billions of people not known to any of them, who had their family or their own lives stripped away from them with something so simple, so easy as the snap of a finger.

The majority of the people in the room began to feel a little sick with both anxiety and grief. Multiple tears were swallowed back, and nobody spoke for the time being.

"Two weeks ago, Thanos snapped his fingers and erased 50% of all living things. We don't know how many went exactly, but because the affects have travelled not just Earth, but the universe itself... it's guarenteed to be trillions, maybe more. Some of the victims we knew, most of them we didn't," Hill narrated as everyone stared at each slide in guilt. "Men, women, children, animals... and we can't reverse it."

"We don't know that," Wanda Maximoff said.

Her voice was so quiet with those words that only Sam Wilson, standing beside the table next to her, could hear. He didn't do anything to suggest that he did.

"What about Scott?" Hank Pym asked, not spying his picture anywhere.

"He's just missing. He might not be gone," Hope insisted. "Don't put him on the list," she ordered Hill. "He's not dead."

Hill looked over to Hope with sympathy in her eyes, and waited a moment before replying.

"In this situation, I think you're gonna have to fear the worst," she told her. "All we can do for now is keep tabs on who's gone and... and be glad it wasn't us that went instead."

"That's it?" Sam asked. "We can't be glad when half the world is missing. We can't just give up."

"What are we supposed to do?"

"We find him," T'Challa said.

He stood up from the couch, where he had previously been sitting and staring into the distance with Hill's previous explanation ringing in his ears. He'd barely said a word since his arrival, but with the sudden thought in his head he'd decided to speak up.

"We don't even know where he is," Hill sighed.

"Hm," Drax said lightly. An incomprehensible emotion flickered in his eyes, and everyone felt the emotion themselves rather than seeing it. "Not necessarily."

"What do you mean not necessarily?" asked Fury.

Everybody looked at Drax expectantly. He waited for the suspense to build, for the heartbeats to quicken. He saw the hope in their faces, their chance at getting their friends back that they were all trying to push down because they thought it wouldn't work.

He liked that feeling.

Every last person in the room staring at him, all thinking of someone they wanted back. Someone who they could have back if enough information and a good enough plan came to light.

"Spit it out," T'Challa said.

A smile hinted at Drax's lips as he began.

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