Now or Never

Chapter 25 ~ My dog can frickin' talk!

Thor laughs dryly. "Look, I'm sorry, no offense, but you're a very earthly being, okay? And we're talking about space magic. And 'can't' seems very definitive. Don't you think?"

"Yeah, look, I know that I'm way outside my pay grade here. But she still isn't here, is she?" Clint starts getting mad at Thor for not understanding.

"No, that's my point," Thor says.

"It can't... be undone. Or that's at least what the red, floating guy had to say." Clint starts raising his voice. "Maybe you wanna go talk to him, okay? Go grab your hammer and you go fly and you talk to him!" There's a pause before he speaks again. This time grief replaces his anger. "It was supposed to be me. She sacrificed her life for that goddamn stone. She bet her life on it."

Bruce lets out a scream in anger and chucks a bench across the lake.

"She's not coming back. We have to make it worth it. We have to." Bruce tells us.

I pick Maximus up and Dad and I stand up with the others. "We will," Dad says with determination in his eyes.

I nod in agreement. "I swear if someone else dies... I'm gonna lose it." I say to them which earns a small sad smile from most of them.

One by one the other Avengers start to leave. Tony and Bruce had to get to Rocket so they can work on the new gauntlet for the stones. Dad and I were the only ones left by the lakeside. We both sit on a bench, Max in my lap and I lean on Dad's shoulder.

After a few more minutes we get up and go our separate ways while we wait for the gauntlet to be finished. I go to my room as usual so I can grieve some more, but when Max and I walk in I see something on my bed. I walk up to it to see that it's a collar and it has a note next to it. I pick it up and read it.

'Made this for Max, thought it might cheer you up. Put it on him, there's a surprise.'

~ Rocket

I smile at the note and pick up the collar. I turn it around in my hands, it's black and seems to have a voice box in it. It also has 'Maximus Rogers' engraved on the collar. I bend down in front of Max and take his collar off, replacing it with the new one Rocket made. I put the old collar on my dresser and bend down to Max once again to check if the collar is on too tight or not. I tighten it a bit more since it's a little loose and I don't want it coming off his neck.

"Not too tight. Not too tight." A deep voice whines.

I stop what I'm doing and look around the room quickly, on high alert, but it's only Max and I. I then look at the dog with a questioning brow. "Max?" I ask cautiously.

"Yeah." The deep voice talks once again.

My eyes widen and I gasp. "Holy shit!" I exclaim.

"What?" Max looks around, ready to protect me.

"This is fucking awesome!" I exclaim once again as I look down at Max.

Max tilts his head to the side. "You can understand me?" He asks and I nod, a big smile is across my face. "Holy shit!" He exclaims.

I laugh and bend down to his level. I fix the collar up on him and then look at the collar once more, spotting a small knob I can turn next to the voice box. I turn it to the left to see what it does.

"What are you doing?" Max asks in a high pitch voice now. We both look at each other, surprised and not liking the new voice at all.

I continue to turn the knob until we find the right voice that suits him which is a boyish voice since he is still my little baby.