After the War

Avengers assemble!

Natasha

"Who was that?" Steve asked me as I aggressively shoved my phone back into my pocket?" "It was Clint." He nodded. "How is he?" "Terrible." "His family?" "Gone." He looked at me with his eyes full of sympathy. "I'm sorry Nat." "It's not really my family anyway," even I heard the bitterness in my own voice. Steve looked shocked, "Nat?" "It's what Clint said... He got kind of angry after I told him about Wanda. Told me I didn't know what it felt like to lose someone I love and all that. So I replied by telling him that his family was like my family too, so he just went with, "Yeah, but not really!" so that's that." "That's..." "Probably just his grieving process." "That might be, but he shouldn't take it out on you." I shrugged. Steve gave an annoyed grunt, "You should stop that!" "Stop what?" "Acting like you don't care! I don't know if you know, but it's okay to care! It's okay to show that you care, to show that you have emotions! It's what makes us human!" I looked down at my feet, "I know," I whispered. "Then why do you keep doing this?" "It's a habit I guess. Emotions are a weakness... people can play on your emotions... If you don't show any, it's harder for your enemies to manipulate you." He put a hand on my shoulder, "Nat, we're not your enemies." "I know. I know that, it's just... I don't know. We're surrounded by people we don't know Steve. People I'm not sure whether I can trust them or not." He nodded in understanding, "And you don't like to open up in front of people you don't trust." It was a statement, just a statement. "I don't." "And if we were alone?" "I'd probably just sit down in the window to stare outside with a sad look on my face." God, what am I doing? Complaining about not wanting to show my feelings while Steve is probably dying inside after losing his best friend again, and his second best friend, or other best friend or whatever. And another good friends of his. And Wanda, someone he felt responsible for. "Now enough about me. How are you?"

Shuri

Half of the universe was gone and suddenly I was a Queen. I know, being Queen sounds fun, but not when half of the population of your country is gone. Not when half the population of the entire world or the entire universe is gone. You'd think it couldn't get any worse from there, well, you're wrong. There was a call for the King of Wakanda, Okoye brought it in for me. "Yes?" "I answered the phone." Someone from a news company answered asking if he was speaking with the King of Wakanda. "No, this is his sister." "Is your brother there?" I might have felt like screaming at the news-reporter, but I was a Queen, so I couldn't. Also, it's impolite. "No, he's not." "So the King isn't home? Where is he?" I sighed. Just the question I wanted to hear. "He's dead." The reporter was silent for a while, then, "Oh, my condolences ma'am." "Thank you. What did you want to know from him." "Well, here were rumors... about... well about what happened." "You mean the disintegrating of half the universe?" "Yes, that." "What do the rumors say?" "They say Wakanda was involved." I hate rumors. "My country was involved yes, but mostly because it would be too dangerous to fight the aliens elsewhere." "Aliens?" Seriously, you heard Wakanda was involved but you didn't hear about the aliens? "Yes, aliens." "Just like in New-York?" "I don't know, I was twelve back then. Anyway, the leader of the aliens had acquired the power to wipe out half of the universe. That's what you can tell all those stupid other press mosquitoes who want to know what happened." I hung up. "Okoye, I have decided something?" "Yes?" "I hate the press."

Tony

We arrived at my office somewhere early in the evening. Nebula decided to wait outside so Pepper and I could talk freely. "You know, you could have mentioned that she's blue." "Oops, I was thinking of something completely else, I lost Peter remember." She sighed, "I know." "God, what am I going to tell May?" "Well, what happened?" "The kid had a school trip and saw what was going on, so he decided to help... Then... well I gave him the new suit, the Iron-Spider, because he was on that giant-donut shaped spaceship and I activated the parachute to get him off she he'd land safely on the ground where he would have been safe, but that stubborn kid just decided to ignore my orders. So he went with us on the ship and he helped us kill this ugly noseless alien dude and... We fought against Thanos and suddenly he just... disappeared, disintegrated, turned to dust, whatever you want to call it!" "Then you should tell her that. I've she didn't turn to dust herself." I hadn't thought of that yet, but with my luck, she hadn't. "Well... yeah, I could tell her that, but I think she'd try to tear my face of or something. She doesn't like me, she never really liked me and this isn't going to make her like. It's more likely to make me hate her." Pepper sighed, "Fine, if she's still around, I'll tell her." "You're the best." "I know." "And I really don't deserve you." "No you don't. But I fell for you anyway. I guess you're going to try to find a way to get Peter and the rest of half of the universe back?" "Yes, I suppose you don't want me to?" "Well, I don't want you to be in danger, but I don't think I can stop you." "No you can't" I walked towards my office, but Pepper's voice stopped me in my tracks, "Tony?" I turned to face her, "Yes?" "Call him." I nodded and continued towards my office."