Vormir, 2014

"Under different circumstances, this would be totally awesome." Clint tells Natasha who agrees.

"Peter's certainly gonna be jealous." Natasha replies.

"Didn't he travel the multiverse?" Clint reminds her.

They make it to the planet and start climbing the mountain.

"Bet the raccoon didn't have to climb a mountain." Natasha says as they reach the top and look around.

"Technically, he's not a raccoon." Clint tells her.

"Oh, whatever, he eats garbage." Natasha states.

"Welcome." A voice says and the two raise their weapons as they see a cloaked figure approach them. "Natasha. Daughter of Ivan." The figure says. "Clint. Son of Edith."

"Who are you?" Natasha asks as the two keep their guard up, but lower their weapons.

"Call me a guide...to you...and to all who seek the soul stone." He says.

"Great. Show us where it is and we'll be on our way." Natasha tells him.

"My child, if only it was that easy." He says and steps into the light to reveal Red Skull.

Red Skull brings them to the same location he is yet to bring Gamora and Thanos to. The soul stone location.

"What lies ahead is what you seek. As what you fear." Red Skull says.

"The stone's down there." Natasha says, peering over the cliff.

"For one of you. For the other...to obtain the stone, it needs a everlasting exchange. A soul for a soul." Red Skull says. And they two look at each other understanding him.

One of them has to die.

Later, they're still thinking about it.

"How's it going?" Clint asks as Red Skull is just floating around. "You know, he's maybe making all of this up." He tells Natasha.

"No. I don't think so." Natasha replies.

"Why? 'Cause he knew your daddy's name?" Clint asks.

"I didn't." Natasha says, explaining why she believes him. "Thanos came here with his daughter, then he left without her. With the stone." Understanding one of them has to die to obtain the stone to bring everyone home. She won't be able to see Peter again, but she can Rest In Peace if she knows he will be okay. "Whatever it takes."

"Whatever it takes." Clint repeats.

"If we don't get that stone, billions of people stay dead." Natasha says as she stands up.

"Then we both know who that someone is." Clint says, looking at the cliff.

"I gues we do." Natasha agrees when Clint takes her hand and she takes his.

"I'm starting to think we mean different people here." Clint guesses.

"For the last five years, I've been trying to do one thing. Get to right here. That's all it's been about. Bringing everyone back. Bringing him back." Natasha states.

"No, don't you get all decent on me now." Clint tells her.

"You think I wanna do it?" Natasha asks. "I'm trying to save your life, you idiot."

"Yeah, well, I don't want you to. How's that?" Clint asks her. "You know what I've done. You know what I've become."

"I don't judge people on their worst mistakes." Natasha tells him.

"You should." Clint replies.

"You didn't." Natasha reminds him.

The two just stand and know one of them has to go to save everyone.

"You're a pain in my ass, you know that? I think we learned who Peter learned it from." Clint states and sees there's no way out of it. "Okay. You win."

"Tell him goodbye for me, please? That he helped me want to be a better person." Natasha asks of Clint and before anything else, he trips her onto the ground.

"Tell him yourself. But tell my family I love them for me." Clint asks of her when she gets free of his hold and stands up.

"You tell them yourself." She repeats and releases a widow bite to shock him and races to the edge.

Clint pulls out a arrow and shoots it in front of Natasha, causing her to loose her balance and Clint runs past her and leaps off the cliff. Only for Natasha to stop him and grapple them to the mountain .

"Damn you." Clint says as he holds onto the rope and Natasha's hand but she's slipping.

"Let me go." Natasha asks of him.

"No." Clint states, not ready to let her go.

"It's okay." Natasha whispers and pushes herself off the mountain, causing Clint to let her go and she plumets and Clint sees her sacrifice as the sky tears open and he's engulfed in darkness.

He wakes up and sees he has the soul stone in his hands and looks back and sees the mountain and Natasha's now resting place.

But now even if they get the stones back, he knows Peter's never going to forgive himself if he learned the reason she was dead was because she wanted to save him.

-

They all returned back to present day, on the quantum tunnel.

"Did we get them all?" Bruce asks them, holding the time stone as their suits come off.

"You saying this actually worked?" Luke asks as Rhodey chuckles, holding the Orb.

The group then looked to Clint who's soaked and see that Natasha's missing.

"Clint, where's Nat?" Bruce asked, hope entangled in his tone.

Clint's silence was an answer in itself for the team as he drops to his knees and tears up.

-

Outside, they're processing their loss.

"Did we know if she had family?" Luke asks them.

"Yeah. Us." Steve says.

"What?" Thor asks.

"What?" Luke asks.

"What are you doing?" Thor asks.

"I was asking him a question." Luke replied.

"Yeah, no, we're acting like she's dead." Thor says to their faces. "We have the stones, right? As long as we have them, we can bring her back. Isn't that right? So stop this shit, we're the Avengers. Get it together." Thor says.

"No, we can't get her back." Clint says as he's looking out into the lake.

"What?" Thor asks him.

"It...can't be undone." Clint states, knowing that she's gone.

"Look, I'm sorry, no offense, but you're a very earthly being, and this is space magic we're dealing with here." Thor explains. "And can't seems very definitive, don't you think?" He asks.

"Yeah, look, I know I'm stepping a little outside my pay grade here. But she isn't here, is he?" Clint asks.

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

"it can't be undone!" Clint yells, getting understandably frustrated. "Or that's at least what the floating guy had to say. Maybe you wanna talk to him, okay? Go grab your hammer, you go fly and go talk to him!!" He yells at Thor. "It was supposed to be me...she gave her god damn life for that stone, she bet her life on it." Clint says and needs to know how he's going to break this to Peter.

Bruce throws a bench miles away in frustration. "She's not coming back." He says. "We have to make it worth it." Bruce says. "We have to."

"We will." Steve promises as he stands up.

But the next step is to bring everyone home.

-

Inside, they're working on the gauntlet and are carefully placing the stones on the gauntlet. They're waiting to see if it worked or blows up in their faces. The stones seem to be working and nothing happens.

They make sure the gauntlet is safe and secure, able to be used.

"All right, the gloves ready. Question is, who's gonna snap their freakin' fingers?" Rocket asks the team.

"I'll do it." Thor offers.

"Excuse me?" Tony asks as Thor walks towards the glove.

"It's okay." Thor states and they all stop him.

"Thor. Just wait. We haven't decided who's gonna put that on yet." Steve tells him.

"I'm sorry, what, we're just sitting around waiting for the right opportunity?" Thor asks him.

"We should at least discuss it." Scott states.

"Look, sitting here starring at the thing is not gonna bring everyone back. I'm the strongest Avenger, Okay? So, this responsibility falls upon me." Thor states. "It's my duty."

"Normally, you're right. It's not about that, Thor." Tony tells him.

"Just let me do it...let me do something good. Something right." Thor says, tearing up.

"Look, it's not just the fact that glove is channeling enough power to light up a continent. You're in no condition." Tony informs Thor.

"What do you think is coursing through my veins right now?" Thor asks him.

"That's a rhetorical question, right?" Luke asks him.

"Lightning." Thor states.

"No, I don't think lightning will help you, pal." Bruce says and they all look to him. "It's gotta be me. You saw what those stones did to Thanos. They almost killed him." He says as he starts walking to the glove. "None of you could survive."

"How do we know you'll survive?" Steve asks.

"We don't. But the radiation's mostly gamma. It's like...I was made for this." Bruce says, staring at the glove.

Outside, Nebula walks to the quantum tunnel and starts hacking into it to bring Thanos and his ship through.

Back in the room, Bruce is ready to put it on.

"You sure about this?" Tony asks him.

"Let's do this." Bruce says as they all get ready for the snap.

"Okay, remember, everyone Thanos snapped away five years ago you're just bringing them back to now, today. Don't change anything in the past 5 years." Tony warns him.

"Got it." Bruce says and they all get ready for what happens.

"Friday, do me a favor, activate Barn Door Protocol, will ya?" Tony asks his AI and the entire base locks down.

"Everybody comes home." Bruce says as he starts placing the gauntlet on. The glove transforms to fit his hand and the power surges through him and he screams in pain.

"Take it off! Take it off!" Thor commands him.

"No, wait. Bruce, are you okay?" Steve asks him.

Bruce doesn't answer and continues to scream.

"Talk to me, Banner." Tony tells him.

"I'm okay...I'm okay." Bruce says.

Nebula is using the quantum tunnel and activates it to a portal from 2014 and Thanos' ship comes flying through into the future.

In the room, Bruce starts using his other hand to open his fist and slowly...

SNAP.

Bruce falls and faints.

Clint kicks the gauntlet as they check on him and see the gauntlet damaged his arm badly as Tony sprays it with ice to cool it down.

"Did...did it work?" Bruce asks them as tony deactivates the lockdown.

"No, we don't know, it's okay." Thor tells him as Scott walks towards the window and sees birds flying onto the trees.

Clint's phone starts ringing and he sees it's his wife. He answers it and starts talking while crying knowing Natasha's sacrifice was worth it.

"Guys...I think it worked." Scott says.

Bruce looks through the open window and sees something coming towards the compound. It hits and explodes, throwing everyone backwards as the ship starts shooting more and more at the compound, destroying everything.

-

Under the compound, Bruce and Luke are holding up the foundation as Rocket is pinned and Rhodes tries moving his suit and it's not working anymore.

"I can't breathe! I can't breathe!" Rocket shouts from under the rubble.

"Canopy, canopy, canopy." Rhodes shouts as his suit lets him go.

"Rhodey, Rocket, get out of here!" Luke shouts to them.

Rhodes crawls to Rocket and helps get him out of the rubble.

Scott, who shrunk at the last second before the blast could hit, gets out from under the rubble.

"Mayday, mayday! Does anyone copy? We're on the lower level, it's flooding!" He hears Rhodey shout.

"What?" He asks into the comms and they can't hear him.

"We are drowning! Does anybody copy? Mayday!" Rhodes keeps shouting.

"Wait! I'm here!" Scott shouts back and rushes to save them.

Clint is in the sewer under the compound and finds the gauntlet with a dozen million Outriders and runs in the opposite direction as they chase after him.

-

Tony rushed forward, and lightly kicked Steve's foot.

"Come on, buddy." He kicked again, harder, "Wake up!" Steve's eyes snapped open as he gasped "That's my man." Tony knelt beside him, presenting his shield. "You lose this again, I'm keeping it."

Steve looked around, with wide-eyes, "What happened?"

"When you mess with time. It tends to mess back." Tony held out his arm, and Steve grabbed hold of it, "You'll see." He pulled him up on his feet, "Come on, we've got a job to finish." He nudged his chest with his fist, before turning back the way he came, "I left Thor watching Thanos."

"Wait ...Thanos?"

It wasn't the time for explanations or questions. Those came later, when this was over. Thanos hadn't come alone, and in their certain situation, they were outnumbered.

Tony gave Steve a few seconds when they made it to Thor, to gather his bearings. None of them had signed up to go toe-to-toe with the Titan again, so it didn't hurt to take a few moments to process what was about to happen. At least this time, they were together.

"What's he been doing?" Tony asked, his eyes locked onto Thanos.

"Absolutely nothing." Thor answers.

"Where are the stones?" Steve asks

"Somewhere under all this." Tony gestured to what was once the compound, now nothing but rubble. "All I know is he doesn't have them."

"So we keep it that way." Steve tells them.

Thor narrowed his eyes, "You know it's a trap, right?" He asks.

"Yeah." Tony sighed, "But I don't much care."

"Good." Thunder clapped in the distance, "Just as long we are all in agreement." Thor held out his arms, channelling his powers; Thor had changed into his armour, and both Stormbreaker and Mjolnir flew into his open hands, "Let's kill him properly this time."