sunset. [wanda maximoff]

epilouge

"Morgan keeps asking if Scottie will be there too," Happy spoke down the phone, keeping his eyes on the young girl as she played with the stuffed otter toy in the back of his car. He was aware they hadn't told her the severity of the situation yet, and he didn't want to have to be the one who broke the news to her. "Pepper, what do you want me to say? I can't keep lying to her."

He heard the woman sigh down the phone and his heart broke once more. Pepper was going through the unimaginable right now, with what had happened to Scottie and Tony ripping the family she had built for herself in half.

"Happy, I'll tell her but not until you guys get here. She deserves to know, but I want her to keep that childhood innocence for one last hour."

When Happy returned to the car, the young girl grinned as he climbed back into the driver seat. He hung a fake smile on his face as he smiled softly back at her, his eyes softening before he started the engine.

"This is otter's favourite song," Morgan told him as she recognised the song that played, before she went back to pretending to talk to the stuff otter.

Happy turned it up.

_____

"Tony had said to us all that you said there was only one outcome that we would win," Natasha spoke, her and Stephen Strange sitting in silence in the empty room. "Was that true?"

She almost thought he was ignoring her when he didn't reply. The dimness of the room made it hard for her to even tell if the man was awake, or if he was simply trying to figure out what to say to the woman.

When he finally did reply, she found herself slightly more confused than she had expected to be.

"The truth is subjective, Miss Romanoff. What one person deems as a win, another might not."

She furrowed her eyebrows, looking at where the fireplace caused the furrow his in own eyebrows to show up. She clutched the mug of hot chocolate with oat milk (Scottie's favourite) in her hand a little tighter as her mind tried to wrap her head around what he was saying.

"Well, do YOU think we won?" She asked, starting to have the sudden fear that the man was about to tell her this wasn't the original way he had seen that they would win the fight against Thanos.

Doctor Strange turned to look at her, a whimsical look on his face as he rose to his feet and went to leave the lounge. The moonlight streaked in through the window and cast a glow on his face as he turned back to answer her question before he headed up to the room he was borrowing.

"The war isn't over yet, Miss Romanoff."

_______

Steve didn't like seeing Scottie looking so... cold. Every time he had seen the girl she had always had a sort of warmth radiating from her - even without her powers. But now she was just lifeless.

"Whatever it takes," he murmured under his breath, the slogan having been uttered by the girl the last time had spoke to her on the battlefield. He knew it would come back to bite him, but he hadn't thought she would once again sacrifice herself to try and save a member of the team.

It shouldn't have surprised him; at this point it had become a habit. She always had put her friends lives before her own, and now she paid the price. She had saved him from Rumlow's suicide bomber attempt, she had saved Nat from remaining dead and now she had once again risked it all to save Tony.