"I couldn't give you up."
"...I know."
As the daughter of Black Widow, Nyla-Rose is used to the craziness that has become her life. When sudden truths are revealed and she's finally ready to take a break from everything, an intergalactic sociopath s...
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Natasha tried to take a step forward, but that only resulted in her falling to her knees and clutching at her heart. She didn't know when she began to cry, but that was the only sound that followed the silence of stunned understanding. Her deep, heartbroken wails echoed throughout the room as Tony stumbled off the platform. Steve didn't know who to comfort first, but seeing Clint kneel down and wrap an arm around Natasha, followed after Tony. The man was fast, Steve gave him that, but the path of destruction that he left behind was easy enough to show where he ended up. He stepped around a broken picture frame that had been knocked off the wall and winced at the sound of more things being smashed behind the door he stopped in front of.
Nyla's room.
He slowly pushed it open to see Tony standing over the desk in the corner of the room, clutching something in his hand with a shattered lamp on the ground. Before he could ask what it was, Tony stuffed it in his pocket.
"Tell me this isn't real," He looked at Steve, pleading with his eyes for his friend to give him an answer.
"Tony..."
He shook his head.
"Don't."
"I don't know what you want me to tell you, Tony," Steve said softly.
"Tell me she's alive. Tell me my sister isn't gone. Give me somethin', Cap."
Steve's heart ached for him and his silence was more words than Tony needed. The distant sound of which both men could hear the sobs of their beloved friend was what snapped him out of his shock. Tony didn't know how to accept something he refused to believe. For a moment, he believed that none of it was true. That Nyla would come rushing through the door with a big smile on her face. That everything was the way they all intended it to be with everyone together as the family they'd fought for.
But, she was gone. She was gone. He found himself muttering the words under his breath as if it was a mantra.
Gone. Gone. Gone.
He hadn't said a word to her before they left to their different time zones.
He hadn't gotten the chance to tell her that he loved her.
He thought she was going to come back.
She was supposed to come back.
Steve moved to put an arm over his shoulders and Tony shifted, fisting his hand in the back of Steve's shirt and pulling him in, holding on tight. They hugged instead. It was all the words of comfort either of them could possibly say, but it was enough. Together, they cried, sharing each other's pain through the close embrace of friends.
