Now or Never

Chapter 14 ~ Aftermath

Rocket nods. "I just saw Groot disappear in front of me and the rest of my family is up in space right now. Not sure if they are still even..." He trails off, but I know what he means.

"Who are they?" I ask him.

"Have you ever heard of the Guardians of the Galaxy?" He asks as he looks at me. I shake my head and he continues. "Well anyway, they're a bunch of idiots, but they're all I've got. If I lose them... then I have nobody." He looks down at his hands.

"That's not true," I say, causing him to look up at me. "You have me now."

He gives me a small smile. "That was so frickin' corny."

I laugh. "Yeah, I know." I smile down at the raccoon beside me. I feel like this is gonna be the start of a cool friendship.

"I really came in here to tell you that that blonde haired chick, what was her name again...?" He trails off as he tries to remember.

"Natasha," I say.

"Right, Natasha! Yeah, she wants everyone in the common room. They're probably waiting on us."

I nod and stand up. Rocket jumps onto my shoulder, which surprises me, but I let him stay.

"You might want to hold on," I warn him and then run us to the common room, where everyone is gathered.

"Whoo, Jesus, that was a rush." Rocket says and I just smile at him.

I look back to see the others staring at us.

"(Y/n), are you okay? We all heard you scream." Dad says worriedly.

"Yeah." I nod. "Yeah, I'm fine now thanks to Rocket." I give the raccoon on my shoulder a small smile before looking back at everyone's depressed faces. "So what now?" I ask.

"I'm going to run a system to count the missing," Bruce says to all of us.

Dad nods. "That's a good start."

"Has anyone heard from Fury?" I ask.

"We got some missed calls, one of them being from Maria. She was trying to contact us to see if we heard from Stark." Nat answers me. "Her and Fury were checking satellites looking for him, but when they tried to call one more time, it cut out." She explains.

"Well we got to check. See if they're okay." Rhodey speaks up.

"I'll do it." I offer. "Since I can get there faster. Just let me change." I then turn to the raccoon on my shoulder. "Rocket, you wanna come?"

"Yeah, why not." He shrugs. He hops off my shoulder to let me change.

The others start to go their separate ways.

"Nat," I call to her. The blonde-haired woman turns to me. "I need to talk to you."

She comes over to me. "What's up?" She asks.

"I uh... I was on the phone with Clint. He... he lost Laura and the kids." I say to her, tears brimming my eyes.

She pulls me close, both of us hurting for our friend. Both of us, scared how he will handle this fallout.

"We'll find a way to bring them back." She says to me as she pulls away.

I nod at her. "I'm gonna get changed," I tell her.

"I'm going to run a check on Fury's last known location." She says.

I hug her one last time. "I'm so glad you didn't disappear. I don't know what I would've done with all these testosterone around us." I say, earning a small chuckle from her.