THE DEATH SEASON ▹ final avengers ✓

34 | the biggest sacrifice

chapter xxxiv of the death season :
" EVERYBODY WANTS A HAPPY ENDING, RIGHT? "

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" A thing isn't beautiful
because it lasts. "
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january 28th, 2023
destroyed avengers compound,
new york

THE UNIVERSE IS ENGULFED IN LIGHT .

Every villain fades away. One by one, members of the outrider army, the Black Order, and finally Thanos all slowly, finally crumble into dust. Into nothing, just as it should be.

The Avengers have won.

But not without a price.

TIME SLIPS THROUGH HER FINGERS , a kaleidoscope of memories fading in her last moments of life.

Lisa Stark-Udaku stumbles away from the battlefield, her mind lost and searching for somewhere to go, for somewhere to rest. She collapses into the rubble, body broken, decaying.

Maybe he shouldn't but it's Tony who finds her first, as he always does, as he always did.

He can tell everyone wants to pull him away, but this is his baby - his baby - and he can't.

He was hers. She was his. They were each other's. Before they were anyone else's.

"Smalls?" It's a tentative question, barely above a whisper, like he's afraid to say it, afraid to think it.

Tony's legs go limp and he slides on his metal knees to get to her, his shaking voice barely above a whisper. He takes in the sight of her, the flayed flesh, the charred arm, her burned face. It's so much. It's all too much. And this time, it's not healing. He tries to stay steady, tries to look strong for her because she needs him now.

But then he sees that tiny scar from the time Rhodey got her trapped in an ice cream tub, and he falls apart.

"Oh my, God... Baby no, what..." His chest wracks with a sob and he squeezes tighter on her hand, "What did you do, Smalls?"

Lisa's gaze is so terribly blank and her warm blue eyes look so dim and distant, like she can't even see him anymore, like it's him that's becoming a ghost in place of her. Burns have mangled the side of her delicate face, marring her beautiful gentle features and leaving her only half like herself. She's fading. She's fading so fast.

Tony knows what's about to happen. He needs to say something; if he doesn't, he'll regret it.

"Don't!" The man hoarsely whispers, his chest shaking, getting so close to hyperventilating, "Please, don't-don't-don't you leave us. You promised me-, God!" Tony's voice grows coarse and angry, "Lees, come on, get up!"

Lisa slowly forces herself to look at her father, each movement looking so painful for her, staring at his familiar features for a long moment, taking him all in, like she knows she's seeing him for the very last time.

"Please, get up..." Tony whimpers, his thumb gently stroking her deformed cheek, "Can you hear me, Smalls?"

Lisa doesn't speak.

But she uses the very last of her strength to raise two skinny fingers, pressing them to the corners of his lips and shakily trying to turn them upward just as she did for him so many years ago when she was just a little girl with bruises and scars.