Shadow Of Darkness: Avengers x Male Reader

Chapter 91: Blip

Everyone burst back up onto the time machine, returning from the separate timelines they had all been sent to. The machine above them clicked as it shut down, followed by everyone's helmets retracting.

"Did we get 'em all?" Tony asked. He was holding a briefcase in his hand that he hadn't had before (Y/N) and Scott left. Steve was also wearing some sort of old military costume.

"Wait. This actually fucking worked?" (Y/N) spun the sceptre in his hand, eyeing the briefcase as he assumed the Tesseract was inside.

Suddenly Clint fell to his knees. His face was absolutely void of emotion, but it was clearly a mask to cover a greater feeling. Everyone looked to him in confusion, only to find he had returned alone with no Natasha at his side.

"Clint, where's Nat?" Bruce asked. Barton didn't reply. Just from his expression, they knew something was wrong. The man looked down, then up at Steve as if he was going to cry.

"No..." (Y/N) fell to a single leg, a hand clawed around his forehead. Next was Bruce who also couldn't hold himself up. The room was overtaken by silence, only broken by the punch (Y/N) threw against the surface below him.

"Damn it!" (Y/N) screamed out across the river. Everyone stood or sat around a wooden walkway over the water, very within themselves as each handled the loss differently. (Y/N) backed up against one of the columns that held a roof above them, sinking down into a seated position and pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Do we know if she had family?" Tony asked quietly. A defeated nod came from (Y/N). There were very few people other than himself who knew of Nat's past. And even though (Y/N) had name dropped Yelena before, her identity was only known by Steve and Natasha right now.

"What?" Thor raised his eyebrows as he treaded over. "What are you doing?" Tony was the first to turn to him.

"Mourning. What are you doing?" He responded.

"Yeah, no, you're acting like she's dead. Why are we acting like she's dead? We have the stones, right? As long as we have the stones-" Thor looked over to Steve. "Cap, we can bring her back. Isn't that right? So, stop this shit. We're the Avengers. Get it together."

"Can't get her back." Clint replied, staring out across the water. Thor just glanced between everyone as he pointed at the man.

"What's he...? What?" The god quizzed.

"It can't be undone. It can't." Clint whispered, giving one look Thor's way. What nobody expected was for the blonde to start chuckling.

"Look, I'm sorry, no offence, but you're a very earthly being, okay? And we're talking about space magic. And 'can't' seems very definite. Don't you think?" Thor threw back at him.

"She's not coming back... Don't you see that?" Clint snapped at him. "Or at least that's what the red floating guy said. Or maybe you wanna go talk to him, huh? You go grab your hammer and you go talk to him!" He shouted at Thor in a sudden outburst.

Everyone went quiet again. Silent tears fell from multiple eyes. Steve, Bruce, (Y/N).

"It was supposed to be me..." Clint whispered. "She sacrificed her life for that goddamn stone. She bet her life on it."

Bruce suddenly grabbed a wooden bench, reeling back his arm and tossing it into the distance with a grunt.

(Y/N) barely managed to compose himself. He gave a few deep breaths out, placing a hand under his eye and feeling it completely damp. He stood to his feet in a slow motion. Bruce turned around at the same time.

"She's not here. We have to make it worth it. We can't just let her death be in vain." (Y/N) spoke lowly, his voice trembling ever so slightly.

"We will."