The White Phoenix 10: An Avengers: Endgame Fanfiction

Chapter 3: Is There A Way?

Steve Rogers, along with seven other people, sat in an desolate cafe, holding a small therapy session. It was a morose session, with very few people speaking to each other, and most just sitting in silence, listening to the tales of woe as people attempted to move on from the horror and pain of the Decimation. One guy, who was sitting next to Steve, was speaking.

'So I... uh, went on a date the other day. It's the first time in five years, you know? I'm sitting there at dinner... I didn't even know what to talk about.'

'What did you talk about?' Steve asked.

'Same old crap, you know? How things have changed, and... my job, his job, how much we miss the Mets. And then things got quiet... He cried as they were serving the salads.'

'What about you?' another man asked.

'I cried... just before dessert. But I'm seeing him again tomorrow, so...'

'That's great,' Steve complimented soberly. 'You did the hardest part. You took the jump, you didn't know where you were gonna come down. And that's it. That's those brave little baby steps we gotta take. To try and become whole again, try and find purpose. I went in the ice in '45 right after I met the love of my life. Woke up 70 years later. You gotta move on. Gotta move on. The world is in our hands. It's left to us guys, and we've got to do something with it. Otherwise... Thanos should have killed all of us.' The room was silent.

Later (at the Avengers Facility in upstate New York)...

Natasha made the sandwich, cutting it into perfect slices, hearing Rocket Raccoon about their status on holographic calls as they travelled the universe, along with Carol Danvers, Nebula, Rhodey and Okoye, trying to fix what they could in the wake of the Decimation.

'Yeah, we boarded that highly suspect warship Danvers pinged.'

'It was an infectious garbage scowl,' Nebula growled under her breath.

'So, thanks for the hot tip,' Rocket snapped at Carol. She just smirked at him.

'Well, you were closer.'

'Yeah. And now we smell like garbage.' Natasha turned to Okoye.

'You get a reading on those tremors?' she asked the Wakandan general.

'It was a mild subduction under the African plate.'

'Do we have a visual? How are we handling it?'

'Nat, it's an earthquake under the ocean. We handle it by not handling it.' Natasha sat, placing the plate with the peanut-butter sandwich in front of her. There was a little bit of silence before Natasha spoke.

'Carol, are we seeing you here next month?'

'Not likely.'

'What, you gonna get another haircut?' Rocket scoffed.

'Listen, fur-face,' she snapped, 'I'm covering a lot of territory. The things that are happening on Earth, are happening everywhere, on thousands of planets.'

'All right, all right, that's a good point. That's a good point,' the raccoon mumbled. Seeing the issue as resolved, Carol turned back to Natasha.

'So you might not see me for a long time.'

'Alright. Uh, well. This channel is always active. So if anything goes sideways... anyone making trouble where they shouldn't... comes through me.'