Steve's Diary

September 19, 2023

Dear Diary,

I tried to take it in as much as I could before we came out of the Quantum Realm because I didn't think I'd ever experience something like this ever again.

Being from an era like I was, an era called The Greatest Generation, I could have never imagined a future like this! A future with time travel and superheroes and aliens.

I need to enjoy it and see it all as much as I can before I'm unable to anymore.

—————

We all popped out of the machine in one piece and looked at one another as we removed our Team Suits.

"Did we get 'em all?" Banner asked as he looked around at all of us.

"Are you telling me this actually worked?" Rhodes asked, holding the orb in his hand.

We were all smiling and looking around. Banner had the Time Stone, Tony had the Tesseract, Scott had the Scepter, Rhodey had the Orb, Rocket had the Aether, and Clint had the Soul Stone, but- he just dropped to his knees with a thud.

"Clint," Bruce started. "Where's Nat?"

He didn't say a word and just looked at us sadly. I felt my eyes start to sting as the gravity of what had happened settled around me. Thanos left Vormir with the Soul Stone but without his daughter- that couldn't be a coincidence, especially now that Clint came back without Natasha.

We all left the area and went out to the docks to talk everything over. We couldn't just leave her dead and tell no one.

"Do we know if she had family?" Tony asked me.

"Yea," I replied. "Us."

"What?" Thor walked up and sounded confused.

"Huh?" Tony stood and turned to him.

"What are you- what are you doing?" Thor re-phrased.

"Just asked him a question," Tony answered.

"Yea, no, you're acting like she's dead," Thor came in. "Why are we acting like she's dead? We have the stones, right? As long as we have the stones, 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 jumped in.

"What's he- what's he- what?" Thor looked confused.

"It can't be undone," he looked over at us like it was killing him that she was gone for good. "It can't."

Thor laughed. "Look, I'm sorry, no offense, but you're a very earthly being, okay? And, we're talking about space magic. And 'can't' seems very definitive. Don't you think?"

"Yea, look, I know I'm way outside my pay grade here," Clint began to explain. "But she still isn't here, is she?"

"No, that's my point," Thor explained.

"It can't- be undone," Clint sobbed. "Or that's at least what the red, floating guy had to say. Maybe you wanna go talk to him, okay? Go grab your hammer and you go fly and you talk to him!" he waited a moment and cooled down. "It was supposed to be me. She sacrificed her life for that goddamn stone. She bet her life on it!"

Bruce pulled a bench from its screwed-in place on the dock and threw it all the way across the lake. "She's not coming back," he said solemnly. "We have to make it worth it. We have to."

I stood. "We will."

With that decision, we headed inside to get started on making Italy worth it- to avenge her death.