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˗ˏˋ 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗯𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗹𝗲 ˎˊ˗
***
━━━ SHE WATCHED FROM UP above as her fellow Avengers mourned for her.
Thor was in denial.
Bruce was angry.
Clint was grieving.
Steve was depressed.
And Tony was learning to accept.
The five stages of grief. The grief over Natasha Romanoff—the girl who had nothing.
In the beginning, she had no one, and in the end, she died for everyone.
***
"Lightning won't help you, pal. It's gotta be me." Bruce said to Thor, offering to snap.
Natasha sucked a sharp breath in. He could possibly die if he snapped. She couldn't let the man that she once loved die. She couldn't.
"You saw what those stones did to Thanos," argued Bruce. "It almost killed him. None of you could survive."
"How do we know you will?" Steve asked.
"We don't. But the radiation's mostly gamma." Bruce said, taking a good look at the gauntlet. "It's like... I was made for this."
Tony asked Friday to shut down the facility as everyone suited up.
"Everybody comes home," said Bruce.
Bruce put on the gauntlet, which nanobotically expanded to fit his hand, and the power surge started to overwhelm him as he cried in the pain as the colorful lights coursed through his veins. Bruce screamed, barely managing to snap his fingers as he fought through the intense agony that he was experiencing from the gauntlet. In a matter of milliseconds, he collapsed and the gauntlet slid off his arm.
"Bruce!" Steve called out, Clint kicking the gauntlet away as both rushed over to Bruce.
"Don't move him." ordered Tony freezing Bruce's injured arm with his suit.
"Did it work?" Bruce asked with a raspy voice.
"Worth a shot. It's over. It's okay." assured Thor.
