THE DEATH SEASON ▹ final avengers ✓

36 | the end ( for good )

chapter xxxvi of the death season :
" I MISS HER TOO "

╓────────────────────╖
" And so... my journey had reached its end. "
╙────────────────────╜

EIGHT

YEARS

LATER

january 28th, 2031
upstate new york, earth

Quiet hip hop plays in the background as a fifteen year old Maria Stark-Udaku toils over her workstation, head bobbing all the while. Kwezi sits cross—legged amongst the wires and tools of her work table, nearly thirteen and already world-renowned for his talents with a paintbrush. With a curiosity as big as her heart, a twelve year old Morgan is beside him, knowing and singing every single word to the song playing while they watch the older girl work.

In the garage, it looks like a bomb has gone off.

Which wouldn't totally be off base for Maria and Morgan, at least.

The garage is technically Tony's, but whenever they're in town, she's given free reign and, God, does Maria take advantage. She sits in the middle of the cluttered floor and loose ringlets fall over her forehead and her undercut, the overalls covering her ratty band tee—shirt all wrinkled, holograms hovering around the dark room, and blueprints and empty coffee cups sit all around her. She has a new plan in mind again. She always gets like this when she's designing something new. So much like her grandfather.

Despite her clutter, there are, of course, Tony's signature decorations throughout the garage. The modern artwork that Pepper still insists upon buying, old Iron Man posters beside the photographs of his family, new and old. Tools and coffee cups of his own are scattered across his work station, such a mess compared to the one on the other side of the garage.

Artwork hangs on the walls on that side of the garage. Personal paintings of familiar faces and memories of things they've only heard about history books. Among them hang pictures and old pinned maps near an organized paint-splattered desk and rows and rows of pencils and paintbrushes along its back ledge.

Everything is organized and well-kept on that side of the garage - the side they're never allowed to go on, and there isn't a layer of dust on anything, but everyone knows it's been a long, long time since it's been in use.

But that doesn't mean those who live here don't keep the area intact.

It's almost eerie; the way that they keep that part of the garage ready as if, at any given moment, its occupant is just about to waltz back through the door and flop carelessly down onto the chair in her workspace.

It's like they're waiting.

It's like they're waiting... for her.

Being suspended in grief doesn't help anyone. People used to tell Maria that, when they were very little and the loss of their mother was in full bloom. Kiwi hadn't adjusted well to permanently living in Wakanda at first. It took him such a long time to understand their new life, where their mama had gone, why he mattered so much to everyone. Maria hadn't done much better, and for a long while, she went through cycles of feeling fine, then drifting into moody fits and rageful tears, then asking endless questions about their mother.