The emotions hung in the air- shock, horror, disbelief.
Shuri, who had been rendered a statue, staggered to the ground, gasping for breath. "What happened?" She asked them, and seeing the horror on Harry's face, she paled. "What happened!"
"We lost." Harry said.
"I'm sorry." Wanda said "I know it was selfish. I just… couldn't lose you."
"I understand." He didn't blame her. It was an impossible position that she'd been put in.
Wanda smiled, even as she began to cry. Harry reached out to her, wiping away the tears streaking down her cheeks. "I love you." Something dropped in his gut. She was saying goodbye. "It's okay. I'm okay."
Then she was gone. Turned to dust in front of his eyes, like she'd dissolved into the air. Where he'd felt the warmth of her cheek a mere moment ago, there was nothing.
"Shuri." He choked out. Looking for her through tear blurred vision. She wasn't there.
No. He stumbled to where she'd been, but there wasn't a trace of her. She hadn't even seen her go. He hadn't even gotten to say goodbye. He sobbed, but panic found him before grief could take hold completely. Skye. Nat. He had to find them. He couldn't lose them too, and if he did, he needed to say goodbye. Harry ran, scrambling through the rubble to the site that the battle had started, where they had left Natasha and Skye's unconscious bodies, along with those most of the others. He collided with someone partway there. "Harry." Natasha gasped, terrified and relieved all at once "Oh god, you're alive. You're alive."
Harry clung to her. "Nat." He choked out, feeling the warmth and solidity of her body like he never had before. Whatever else would happen, she was real and alive right now. Harry didn't know how long they held each other, as though if they could hold on tight enough, they could prevent each other from disappearing.
"Is… is Skye…?" Harry eventually managed.
"She disappeared, right in front of me." Nat answered, her voice broken. "She was there, and then she wasn't." Harry sobbed again, grief now taking hold. "Harry." Natasha gasped "Something- somethings wrong."
The scene shifted around him. Thor was on his knees, looking up at Loki's severed head. Sif had her hand on his shoulder. Rocket was sitting alone on a rock. "How can they all be gone?" He said to himself, in a small broken voice. He was part of the group of aliens that had been with Thor, Harry realized, and he was the only one left. He must have lost his entire world. Harry knew what that felt like. At least now he still had people. He had Nat and Thor, if no one else.
Carol Danvers hadn't said a word. She'd followed them, pale and shaking, silently enduring their suffering while letting self-loathing fester. Harry remembered what that felt like too, from another life. He'd fallen into a trap, and because of it, Sirius had died. Except this was far worse, far far worse. It was unimaginable. A nightmare.
----
Harry woke up with tears in his eyes. He'd suffered from nightmares since he was a kid. He would dream of the graveyard, Sirius falling through the veil, his parents dying, all the old hits. They had reached their absolute worst in those first two years after arriving in this world. He was pretty sure the first truly restful night he'd had since walking to his death at Hogwarts had been dozing off with Nat in post orgasmic bliss the night they'd met.
In recent years, those nightmares had receded, and when they did haunt him he always awoke with someone to sooth his racing heart and wipe his tears- and as often as not, to distract him with sex. The nightmares were back, now, and more often than not the spot beside him was cold, leaving only the lingering scent of his companion.
He sighed. It was 5 AM, so there was no point in trying to get back to sleep. Harry pushed himself out of bed and puttered through his morning routine- brushing his teeth, shower, clothes. Then he went to the stove and cooked up breakfast. He found Nat exactly where he'd expected her, in the offices, hunched over a computer. Her face was creased with focus and sleeplessness. "Hey." He said "I cooked bacon and eggs. Want to eat breakfast with me?"
"No thanks." She said, her eyes barely flickering from her screen. He looked at the report she had pulled up- some doomsday cult committing acts of terrorism in the Southern United States. He sighed. He hated seeing her like this. He knew how warm, kind, and loving Nat could be. It hurt him to see her so cold, so without hope.
"You don't need to do this to yourself." He said softly.
That got her attention. He'd never put it so bluntly, but after weeks of this, he'd had enough. He'd lost so many people already, and it felt like he was losing her too. "What do you mean?"
"You're more than just a spy, Nat, and you're not a machine. You're worth so much more than that. You need rest. You need food. You need your friends and the people who love you. Don't push us away."
"I really believed that." She said at length "I thought I could be something, anything more than spy." But then she shook her head "But it was just a dream. I wasn't meant to have a happy life, to have friends and a family. I was meant for this."
This- meaning working herself into the ground until she keeled over dead- Harry surmised. "I know you're hurting." He said, trying one last time to reach her.
"Its okay." Natasha said quickly, far too quickly. "I just have a lot of work to do. We might send you out on these people."
"Yeah. Sure." Harry said. But while Natasha might send him out on any number of terrorist groups, he couldn't help but feel that he was needed here far more.
They had all lost a lot, but what Natasha had lost had hurt her in ways he could only imagine. She hadn't just lost her sister, or her friends, or lovers when Thanos had snapped his fingers. She'd always secretly wanted a family, but she'd pushed it away as an impossible dream. Harry had let that dream be possible, they were going to have a child, maybe several. They still could, if Natasha ever pulled herself out of this spiral, but Lily, the daughter they didn't even know but already loved, was gone.
-----
"Why are you helping me?" Carol asked. Harry had dragged her out of her room to get lunch. He was tired of seeing the people around him self-destruct. He'd been there. He knew what it was like. And he hated knowing exactly how his friends must be feeling. He didn't know Carol, not really, but she had taken the snap worse than anyone. She had been given a room, and as far as anyone could tell simply hadn't left it. Pepper had arranged for food to be brought in, and it was always returned having only been picked at.
"Why wouldn't' I?" He asked, pulling her along, and noting that she wasn't exactly fighting him. She had lost weight, her features gaunt and haunted and her clothes hung off her frame. She looked like a shadow of the cocky hero he'd first seen her as.
Carol looked at him incredulously. "Because I got all your friends killed?"
"Wow, last I checked that was Thanos." He said with sarcasm "You don't look particularly purple to me."
"You know what I meant."
"You didn't kill them."
"It's still my fault. All those people… everyone, half the universe. It's all on me." She choked on her unshed tears.
"Carol." Harry softened, stroking her upper arm in what he hoped was soothing to her "I'm not going to pretend you didn't make a mistake." She sobbed "Frankly, I'd be worried if you didn't feel guilty and torn up about it. But-" he held up a finger "You're wallowing. You're not helping anyone starving yourself in your room."
"Maybe that's what I deserve." She muttered, and Harry huffed.
"Do you think you're somehow atoning, by punishing yourself like this?" He asked her. "That if you make yourself suffer, that somehow makes up for anything?"
Carol quailed at his biting tone. "Uh, no?" She said uncertainly.
"Good. Cause I might have to smack you if you did. You're not going to get anywhere by slowly starving yourself. Trust me, I've been there." He grimaced as he remembered how he'd reacted to Sirius' death. He had wallowed in self-flagellation for months, just as Carol was doing. "I've accidentally gotten people killed, people I love." He admitted "So I can tell you that this isn't the way."
"Then what do I do?" She was latching on to what he was saying, now. It gave Harry hope, maybe Natasha might one day do the same.
"Recognize what you did wrong and why. Figure out how to avoid making a mistake like that in the future. Help people who've been harmed by your mistake. Forgive yourself."
"Something tells me you're really going to harp on the last one."
"How can you help other people if you don't help yourself?" He asked her "How can you treat the people around you with love and kindness if you hate yourself? How are you supposed to become a better person if you can't see the good in yourself? Understood?"
Carol nodded, and Harry smiled. She gave her own faint smile back in spite of herself. "Good. Now step one in your 'redemption arc'- eating some fucking food."
"Okay, okay." Carol chuckled "You don't need to drag me anymore, I'll come quietly."
Miraculously, Carol ate. Her appearance drew curious glances, but no one dared interfere. What remained of the Avengers team had regrouped back at the New York compound. It felt much emptier now. The additions of Carol, Rocket, and Nebula couldn't even begin to outweigh those that they had lost. Skye, Wanda, Maria, Yelena, Shuri, T'Chahlla, Bucky, Sam, Hope, Peter, Jane, Fury, Stephen, and so many more.
It didn't help that many of those who were left hadn't taken it well. Steve was listless. Thor was trying to drown himself in alcohol. Pietro had (literally) run off. Clint might have taken off too if Harry hadn't threatened to track him down and keep him on house arrest. Natasha and Carol were both subjecting themselves to their own breakdowns. And Tony… Tony had clung to Pepper. Surprising Harry, he'd gone from a haunted man to one of the few people keeping the team together.
Harry was glad for the help.
"Food's good, isn't it?" Harry said casually, between bites. As most members of the team spent much of their lives there, Tony had spared no expense on the comforts and necessities of life at the Avengers compound. A handful of respected, and meticulously screened chefs staffed the kitchen, and Harry had yet to have a bad meal from them.
Carol nodded with a pleasant hum. "S' good." it seemed that once she was properly eating, her appetite came roaring back. She was scarfing the pasta dish down, and Harry discretely texted Jarvis for more food. Carol would demolish the next plate almost as rapidly.
It was a start.
-----
Nebula flinched as Harry brought his hand to her temple. She was laid out on a bed, putting on her best imitation of being at ease and failing. The alien woman had stumbled across the tattered remnants of the Avengers in Asgard well after the battle had ended, but Rocket had vouched for her, and she'd been welcomed when Thor brought them back to Earth with Stormbreaker.
For the first week, she'd been all business. She'd helped them track down Thanos for that ultimately pointless mission, their last attempt to retrieve the stones, which had failed because there was no longer anything left to retrieve. She had barely uttered a word to him outside of meetings, and Harry had been inclined to respect her silence. He didn't know her, and she, unlike some of his friends, wasn't actively self-destructing. No, it was her who had approached him first.
"I heard you can regrow body parts." She said to him abruptly. She'd intercepted him at the perfect time, just out from a stiff meeting with Natasha, and with nothing solid on his schedule for the next few hours.
She was right. He'd become well known to the public for his miraculous ability to heal, and his visits to hospitals often went viral. But that had been with the Elder Wand. He was now reduced to using a sling ring for everyday use, and it was a poor excuse for a proper wand- like forcing a square peg into a round hole. Thor would let him borrow Mjolnir when necessary, but Harry didn't want to deprive him of his beloved hammer for too long, not with everything else he was struggling with.
Still, Harry had appraised her, and found that he couldn't say no. He knew the basics of her story 'adopted' by Thanos, she'd been mutilated, hacked apart, and reconstructed by him. He doubted he could completely return her to how she'd once been, but he had to try.
If only Shuri were here. She'd have in depth scans of her body and would have pieced everything together already. Comparatively Harry, Tony, and Bruce were stumbling blind. The things that Thanos had done to her were so widespread and so thorough that Harry didn't think they could ever undo it, not entirely. So, he'd asked her to prioritize.
Nebula had an immediate answer"I want him out of my head." It was a big request, but the horror of having your very mind tinkered and toyed with had urged them onward.
"Well?" She asked.
Harry glanced at the scans Tony had provided, matching it with what his magic was telling him. There were nearly a dozen implants in her brain, and though he couldn't begin to guess their function, speculating on it made him feel sick. He summoned Mjolnir to his hand. "Let's do this. Bruce?"
They all agreed that it would be a bad idea to have her awake while she was undergoing what was essentially magical surgery, and Harry didn't want to push his magic further than necessary by putting her to sleep himself. He would already be using all his focus in healing her, and any lapse could be disastrous. Bruce had been brought in for his extensive knowledge of medical anesthetics. Nebula, disturbingly, already had several ports installed for the administration of such medicines.
Nebula slumped back, relaxed finally as she fell unconscious. They waited for several minutes to ensure that she was well and truly under. Harry's part of the procedure couldn't have gone better. Vanishing the implants was quick work, but regrowing the tissue around them was slow. It was just a matter of persistence, however, and Harry had plenty of that.
She would be alright. The rest would be up to her.
-----
"How do you do it?" Thor asked him as Harry returned Mjolnir "How do you… keep going?" He was sitting in a courtyard drinking, but he wasn't fully out of it yet. Steve was with him, but as far as Harry could tell he'd hardly touched his beer. No, Steve's method of coping was much more similar to Nat's- he'd been out on more missions than any of them. "How'd you keep walking around… doing things, after losing everything?"
Harry shrugged "Experience?"
"That makes it worse. You realize that that makes it worse." Harry sighed as Thor continued thoughtlessly "You've lost everyone twice. How do you bear it?"
"Did Nat ever tell you the state I was in when she met me?"
They both shook their heads. He wasn't surprised, it was a very personal story for both of them.
"You were right, I lost everything. I took it… very badly. I wasn't living, not really. I just existed." Harry looked down, remembering how despair had eventually been ground down into listlessness. Harry hadn't just been someone who had lost everything, the loss had become him, defined every part of his life and being. He'd become nothing more than a walking memorial, a living memory.
"I know how that feels." Steve said softly, looking in the distance. His and Harry's stories weren't all that dissimilar, after all.
"What changed?" Thor asked.
"Then I met Nat. I became an Avenger. I had friends again, I loved again, I had a family again. But you know what? I never forgot them. God, I miss them, I always will. And I miss Wanda, and Shuri, and Skye, and all the rest. But-" His eyes stung, the thought of them, the women he loved so, it made his heart ache.
"You gotta move on." Steve muttered.
"No." Harry said. "At least, it didn't feel like that. I never left them behind, it was like I grew around them." It was his first time putting these feelings into words, and it felt cathartic. "I haven't been without them, not for a moment. Whenever I was working out a problem, I'd imagine what Hermione would say. Whenever I realized I was being a prat about something, I swear I could hear Ginny." His smile was bittersweet as he recalled those now old memories. "Ron's bravery. Neville's loyalty. Luna's imagination. They're all here." He tapped his chest "They always will be."
-----
Carol had never met anyone quite like Harry Potter. After he'd personally dragged her out of the room and eaten lunch with her, he'd become more than just one of the many, many people she'd let down. His face was more than just a reminder of the grief and horror that had stricken it after Thanos had snapped his fingers, after she'd failed to stop him.
Now, when she pictured his face, it was full of the warmth and kindness with which he'd treated her. Thinking of him no longer only elicited guilt, it felt good, light and comfortable. She found herself getting ready for the day, properly ready, and getting out of her room of her own accord so that she could spend time with him. It helped that Harry, unlike some of the others, only occasionally left the compound. When she asked him about this, he'd said that 'he was needed here'.
At first, she thought he was talking about her, but Harry had dispelled that notion. Of course she wasn't the only person he was worried about. It was humbling, in a way. She knew, obviously, that she was far from the only one suffering, but up to that point other people's pain had only been a reminder of how she had failed. Instead… it was somehow comforting. She wasn't alone. She wasn't even the only one who felt guilty. She had sought out Thor, and together the two of them had gotten plastered commiserating over their failure.
But if anything, every step she'd made only kindled her desire to see more of Harry. She never felt better than when she was around him, and it wasn't like she had anyone else she was close to. She'd spent years going from planet to planet, making connections but never setting down roots, meeting people but never getting to know them. The few ties she had left on Earth had been… severed.
This was how she found herself walking to the gym. Exercise as ordinary humans did it gave her no benefits, even with the enhanced equipment available at the compound, she was just there to… her thoughts jolted to a halt as she caught sight of him.
Oh.
She'd known he was beautiful on the inside, but it hadn't consciously clicked with her that he was just as gorgeous physically, not until it was thrown into her face. It was far from the most impressive feat of strength she'd seen from a man, but that hardly mattered. He was seated, in the middle of a set of arm curls, nothing more. Yet there was something about the look concentration on his face, so total that he didn't even notice her stare, and the way his muscles tensed as he lifted the weights, one arm at a time, and the sheen of sweat on his bare, toned chest, and how he breathed and grunted with each lift. Fuck, she couldn't help but imagine how he might look and sound on top of her, peeling his clothes off…
She shook herself and beat a quick retreat. Her libido had disappeared after the battle, and she hadn't heard a peep from it since. Now it seemed the floodgates had opened, and her body wanted to make up for lost time. She didn't have any toys here, but it nevertheless took her shockingly little time to make herself cum.
-----
"I know you've been watching him." Natasha said. Carol had wondered why she'd been called into her office. Perhaps a distress call from deep space, something that only she could manage. For a while, she couldn't have bared the thought of going outside, knowing that the people who, in many cases, idolized her were holding up the person who had betrayed them. Recently, however, she'd been going out. Quick trips (for her) to check on nearby systems, or to assist the Avengers on Earth. She didn't want to leave Earth entirely, but perhaps she could strike a balance.
But no, Natasha wasn't talking to her as an Avenger, but as an offended lover, who obviously knew of Carol's interest in her man. "Its not like that." Carol protested "He's done a lot for me and I-"
Natasha rolled her eyes "At ease, Captain." She said, with some snark "I'm not upset."
"What?"
"In fact, I'm here to give you permission to pursue him."
"What?!?"
Natasha almost smiled at her outburst, almost, but the flicker of amusement was snuffed out in an instant. "He deserves more than I can give him." She said "He has so much love to give, and I'm just not in a position to receive it right now." Her words were clipped and formal, and for the life of her Carol couldn't glean anything from her. "And he's lost so much, you know. We had a polyamorous relationship, with Shuri, Skye, and Wanda. He lost them all, and with things as they are right now, I can't be there for him the way he needs."
God, this was going to give her a headache. "You don't have to be so busy, there are plenty of other people who could take up those responsibilities." She said, knowing full well she wasn't the person who should be telling her this. She barely knew her or her life. Still, she couldn't deny that the offer was tempting. Even a casual relationship with Harry would be... very appealing.
Sure enough, Natasha just shook her head. That was all Carol had known her as, a complete hardass, almost entirely stoic. She had wondered how Natasha and Harry could possibly gotten together, but then the Natasha Romanoff that Harry had described to her bore no resemblance to this woman. Loss had changed her, like it had all of them. "That's all I called you here for. I've got more work to do. And…" her voice dipped, spiked with a frisson of pain so intense that it alarmed her "And please, take care of him."
-----
Harry returned to his room, not looking forward to once again coming back to an empty bed. He wanted nothing more than to gather Nat into his arms, to hold her and reassure her that everything would be alright, that he loved her so, and that he'd never abandon her. But she didn't want that. Whenever he tried, it only made her pull away.
He flicked on the lights, and his jaw dropped. His bed wasn't, in fact, empty. Carol Danvers was draped over it, completely naked. "Hey Harry." She said far more casually than the situation called for. He gaped at her, mostly in shock, but also, if he were being honest with himself, with a little bit of lust. Yes, Carol Danvers was attractive, he knew that, but he'd never thought of her in that way. He'd been far to focused on helping her and preoccupied with rekindling his relationship with Nat to even consider pursuing other women.
But now Carol was here, naked and beautiful, and now she was walking up to him. "I've been waiting for you." She was inches in front of him now, reaching out when Harry caught her hand.
"Wait." He gasped, finally getting his bearings. "What- what is this about?"
"Isn't it obvious?" She asked.
"Well, yes, but why?" He sputtered "You know that me and Nat-"
"She invited me to, practically begged me to." Carol ripped her hand out of his grasp and pressed it to his chest "Who am I to turn down such a generous offer? Now-"
"God damn it." Harry muttered turning away, his eyes prickling with tears. "God fucking damn it, Nat."
"Harry?" Carol's voice warbled uncertainly "I'm sorry, I thought you'd want-"
"Its not you." Harry said.
"God, I've heard this talk before."
"No, I mean. In another situation I'd love to be with you, believe me, but not like this." Harry said "I can't abandon Nat like that."
"But she-"
"Threw you at me so that I'd forget all about her and let her work herself to death." Harry spat. "As if, she's really screwed in the head if she thinks I'd ever give up on her."
"Oh." Carol said softly, then there was a rustling of clothes "I should have put the pieces together. I'm sorry."
"Not your fault. I'm flattered, really." When he turned around, she was clothed again. "Its not you that I'm mad at. I'm not even mad at Nat, just frustrated that she's hurting herself like this."
Carol's eyes were glassy, and she laid back on the bed. "Come here." She patted beside her. Harry hesitated, and she chuckled "I'm not going to put the moves on you. I just think you need someone… to care for you, the way you've been caring for everyone else here."
"Oh." Harry felt something in him twist. "That sounds… nice." He settled into bed beside her, and she wrapped her arms around him. He had to admit, he had missed it- the feeling of being held, to have someone take care of him. Softly, quietly, Harry let himself cry.