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The battle is over. Okoye sees a few avengers surrounding Tony, crying. She didn’t really know him, but she feels for her friends.
She keeps looking around.
“Where’s Nat?” She speaks through their communicators. No one answers but she sees Carol flying around, fast, desperate, she’s clearly looking for something, someone, probably the same someone she’s wondering about. The guy with the wings is flying too, she can’t remember his name right now, but he also looks as worried as she feels.
Finally, Carol stops in the air, looking down at Captain America, “Rogers, where is Romanov?”
Steve finally dries his tears, clears his throat, “Nat’s gone.”
Okoye sees Carol’s ungraceful landing, it was more like a fall. They look at each other with disbelief in their eyes. They hear Wanda gasp, “What do you mean gone?”
“Gone, they’re both gone.”
Sam’s landing is a bit better than Carol’s only because Bucky is close enough to catch him. They try to get to Steve but he just leaves. No one says anything else for a while. They don’t understand. They didn’t see Nat on the field so they don’t know what happened, but this isn’t the moment to ask.
Most of them finally go home, except for the remaining Avengers who silently go to Stark’s house for the night, the battle drained them physically and emotionally.
------
Nebula’s the one to tell them exactly what happened, just the night before Tony’s funeral. Okoye is furious. Nat had talked to her before going back in time, she had sounded excited and so sure that she was going to be back and fix everything. They had fought side by side, they had been allies and friends for five years. Nat was their leader and the one person that kept them all together, and they didn’t even bother to call her to let her know what had happened.
Carol goes to see Fury, someone probably broke the news to him already and she knows what Natasha meant to him. He probably needs a friend, she also needs him right now. She finds him petting Goose and looking like he has no more tears left to cry. “I’m sorry, Fury, I didn’t know, they didn’t even tell me what they were going to do.”
“I’d never blame you.”
“That’s fine, I blame myself plenty for the both of us.”
“Carol…”
“I know you weren’t here, Nick, but--” Fury suddenly shoots her a look, he’s shocked, she’s never called him Nick before. “Right, sorry, Nat’s fault. She kept calling you Nick whenever she told a story about you. And that’s what I was trying to say, the last five years we’ve become really close, I can see why she was one of your favorites. She’s been one of my best friends and I can’t believe she’s gone, I should’ve been here, I should’ve done someth--”
She breaks down, he hugs her and they both cry together, holding on to each other.
They see Maria Hill at Tony’s funeral and she’s not handling either of their deaths well, none of them really are but Maria has this lost look in her eyes. Fury knows as much as she does what it feels like to have been gone for what it felt like seconds, but in reality was 5 years, with some of your loved ones continuing their lives and some… dead. Fury goes to hug Hill and Carol lets them have their moment. She looks at the rest of the crowd and thinks that some of them are lucky, they only lost Tony. But then she remembers that she was the lucky one for getting to know Natasha.
Tony’s service is a short and intimate event. Happy takes care of Morgan when Maria is taking care of Pepper. Once it’s over, some of them go back to their homes, to begin to move on, but most of them start getting ready for tomorrow.
------
They have Natasha’s memorial the next morning and it’s a huge thing with almost every Shield agent available that had crossed paths with her in attendance. If only she could see this now, Okoye thinks, she would know that she did more good than bad in the end, way before she jumped off that cliff.
“Natasha Romanov was an assassin, and even though that wasn't really her fault, she still tried to make amends for all she did until her last breath, I should've told her that she didn't have to anymore, that her ledger had been clean the moment she decided to fight the good fight. Nat was a part of my family, she did this for me, for all of us, she--” Clint couldn’t keep going, he just started walking until Laura hugged him.
“I told her we needed to get a life, but the truth is… she already had one, she’d found a family here, in all of us. She was keeping afloat this whole thing with the same conviction and dedication that Peggy had, with the same loyalty for the cause and its people that Fury and Coulson embodied… For the last five years she was our leader, but she was always our heart. Some of us gave up after the snap, some of us couldn’t move on, but she never stopped believing, she never stopped fighting. I thought it was because she couldn’t let go, I now know I was wrong, I was projecting probably. It was because that’s who she was, a fighter. And over the course of all these years she also became almost every avenger’s best friend, and if you’ve met us you know that’s not an easy thing to accomplish. Nat was special and looking at this room, I hope she knew-- she knows how loved she was.”
Okoye takes a deep breath before starting, “She called me one day out of the blue and I thought something had happened. ‘It’s girl’s night’, she said, more excited than I had ever heard her speak. I was confused so I asked, ‘Girl’s night?’. ‘Yeah, you know, us avengers girls, having pizza and beer, just hanging out?’. I told her I knew what a girl’s night was but that I was on the other side of the world and had stuff to do. ‘Carol’s here, that’s why this is a last minute thing, she’s going to pick you up if you guys let her in, she’s probably already there’. It was our first girl’s night of many, and I was so honored to be included, I still can’t quite believe it. She deserved so much more than the life she got. I hope you’re at peace now, Nat.”
“She was the only person allowed to called me a raccoon because I could tell she cared, and because she promised me she’ll get me Bucky’s arm when we got everyone back.” Bucky suddenly looks horrified, Sam chuckles through his tears and puts a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll miss her e-mails most of all.”
“After we killed my father all those years ago and everything seemed to be over, I felt alone, like I didn’t belong anywhere. It was Natasha-- yes, okay Rockett too-- but mostly Natasha who helped me adapt, who gave me a new purpose, that’s who she was...”
Nebula does something to her head and suddenly her eye is projecting an image of Natasha “Nebula, stop, Thanos is dead and you’re finally free, I know at least a fraction of how you’re feeling, trust me, you can be whoever you want to be right now, and you’ll still have people by your side supporting you.”
“I’ve never really had people by my side, with Gamora most of the time things were...” Nebula’s voice trails off and Natasha looks at her with a tiny smile on her face.
“Well, you do now.”
The recording ends and Gamora is fast to reach her and hug her.
“Who would have believed that in a group full of Shield secret agents, and people with superpowers, a russian spy would be the best of us? Look, I might joke around that I’m the strongest Avenger, hell, we wouldn’t even be called that if it wasn’t for me, but those are my powers. Most of us have superpowers, she didn’t. She was braver than any of us, stronger than any of us, and in many ways she was also smarter than any of us. I already miss everything about her and her friendship. Please, as someone said yesterday about Tony, let’s make sure the world and the whole universe know her name, let’s make sure they know they also owe everything to Natasha Romanov.”
------
They spend the rest of the day remembering Natasha, crying and laughing. Once most people is gone, Carol is coming back from the bathroom when she hears Okoye shouting at someone.
“I don’t care what Stark said, it was wrong and you know it!”
“I didn’t think it would be her, maybe he--” Nebula is trying to keep it together but anyone could tell she’d be crying if she could.
Steve interrupts her, “That’s bullshit. He knew Nat always won that fight, always.”
Carol’s completely confused and she’s not sure she wants to understand what they’re talking about. She enters the room anyway. The only thing that she can understand is that there are three groups here. There’s the people who had been absent in the last 5 years all sitting together, clearly upset but also trying not to interfere: Wanda, Fury, Maria, Sam and Bucky. There’s Nebula, who’s apparently being attacked, but she's kind of backed up by Rhodey, Rocket and Gamora. And then Okoye and Steve, who look ready to kill someone, which is frightening if you consider who they are. She tries not to look at anyone in particular when she asks, “What’s this all about?”
Steve looks at Okoye, Nebula lowers her head and takes a few steps away from Carol. No one says anything.
After a few seconds of tense silence Hill stands up, “Apparently... Nebula was it?” she receives a nod that lets her keep going, “Nebula and Tony knew what needed to happen in Vormir to get the Soul Stone and that’s why Tony chose Barton and Romanov to go there, they knew one of them wasn’t coming back.”
Carol thinks Thanos’ punch with the power stone hurt less than the words she just heard. Her hands start glowing and she’s not consciously doing it, she’s been in perfect control of her powers for almost 30 years, with only one exception: when she found out Maria and Monica had been snapped away.
Wanda stands up and Carol thinks that the redhead is in control of her own glowing hands. Fury steps in between them, “At ease, Captain.” She looks at him unamused, he sighs. “Danvers. It’s alright.”
“None of this is alright.” Okoye says firmly while she slowly makes her way towards her friend.
Carol takes a deep breath and stops glowing. She looks at Nebula, “I was alive, you guys should’ve called us, I could’ve gone instead of them.”
Steve steps next to Nebula to answer, “The thing with the Soul Stone is… it’s not just a soul for a soul, you have to sacrifice the thing-- the person you love most to earn it. Tony knew what he was doing, ‘whatever it takes’ he kept telling me, he knew those two were the only ones who had someone like that alive to make that exchange possible.”
“No, he didn’t! He just didn’t care enough to ask!” Okoye is back to yelling now and Steve looks terrified. She looks at Carol, though, “You wouldn’t have been able to make the exchange, but he should’ve asked me.” She looks at Nebula, Steve and Rocket now, “This discussion right here? We had time to have it before you went back in time and all of us should’ve been there.”
“She’s right, but that’s just like Tony Stark, right? He was back on board after five years and he was suddenly the leader again? Calling all the shots?”
“Can you guys stop attacking a guy who can’t be here to defend himself?”
Steves rolls his eyes at Rhodey, “He doesn’t need to be here when he’s got his boy doing it for him.” he takes a breath, “You know they’re right, James. He fucked up, we fucked up. Again.”
Fury looks at them, “There’s not much use in arguing about this anyway, I wasn’t there but we all know that if she had known, if you all had discussed this together, Natasha would’ve made a perfectly good argument for her to be the one to go to Vormir anyway, and she would’ve fought every single one of you to do it.”
“I would’ve loved to see her try.” Okoye’s small smile feels like the first in years.
“Regardless, she’s gone and we need to honor her memory and make sure she didn’t do it in vain. There’s nothing else we can do now.” Fury looks as commanding as always, but the sadness in his eyes betray him.
“No, wait, what if there is?” Everyone looks at Carol with a mix of confusion, pity and hope.
Fury doesn’t get what she’s getting at, other than she’s probably thinking of time travel again, “Carol, no”
“What? What do you mean ‘no’? If there’s a small chance we can bring her back, we have to take it, it’s exactly the same thing she did for all of you.” She walks closer to Fury and looks at him right in the eyes, “How can we sit back now and not do anything in our power to bring her back?”
“We can’t keep messing around with these things. We don’t even know if it would create another timeline or what would the consequences be.”
“Fury. It’s Nat.”
He swallows, probably whatever words he was going to say next. He knows he can’t fight this. Captain Danvers has made up her mind and she’s probably the most stubborn person he’s ever met. Hell, he doesn’t even want to fight this, he really hopes that somehow bringing Natasha back is one of Carol’s many superpowers. “You’re right.”
“No, she’s not, are you insane?” Everyone stares at James in shock. “I loved the girl as much as anyone here but this is insane, what’s stopping us from bringing back Tony then? Or Peter’s parents or any loved one we’ve ever lost? We can’t keep doing this!”
Okoye walks up to him, “That woman is basically the reason we’re here. I get your point, I do, but this is different. She didn’t die a natural death, it was a weird mystical exchange, for all we know her soul could be trapped in that stone.”
Carol smirks at Okoye, “Exactly, there has to be a way.”
Wanda sits down, “Wait, is this really possible? I know I wasn’t around for all this time travel thing you guys did so I’m still trying to wrap my head around that, but this?”
María starts pacing, her voice loud but shaken. “None of this makes any sense. From our point of view this whole thing is insane. I was gone for like 2 seconds and came back to find out my best friend was dead, and another friend died not long after that.” She takes a deep breath, stops walking and stands tall, “But from what I’m hearing Natasha risked her life just for a chance at bringing us back, we need to at least try to do this, we owe her that much.” Steve gives her a small smile.
Rhodey sighs, “We need to call Bruce, we really need to talk this through and make sure there wouldn’t be weird or bad consequences.”
Carol’s relieved that they all seem to be on the same page again, “We’ll call him and everyone else, we’re not making the same mistake you guys did, we’ll talk this out as a team.”
Nebula puts a hand on Carol’s shoulder, “I’m sorry, I cared about her too.” Carol nods and Nebula composes herself, “Rhodey’s right. We need a few days to think and regroup, we should be using our heads if we want to do this right.”
“Yes. Okay, everyone, go home, be with your families, friends, catch up on five years of TV, get some rest. I’ll call you all in a couple of days.” Most of them never saw Fury as their boss, some of them never even met the guy, but it’s clear that he’s a natural leader, as much as it’s clear that he just put an end to the discussion and to the day.
Rhodey takes off, he’s going to keep an eye on Pepper and Morgan. Gamora takes Nebula’s arm, Rocket goes with them to be with Groot and the rest. Okoye hugs Carol before leaving, the Guardians take her to Wakanda. Sam, Bucky, Steve and Wanda leave together.
María and Fury walk with Carol outside. Fury breaks the silence, “Tell your family we say hi.”, she hugs them both and they leave. Carol finally goes to Louisiana.
She gets there in record time but takes a moment to breathe before entering the house. She'll be okay, Maria and Monica are alive and waiting for her inside. The Avengers are grieving but they'll be fine. They won. She'll be okay, and soon enough Natasha will be, too.