So... I just randomly wrote this in the last couple hours.
Not completely sure where it came from.
I don't own the Avengers, or anything from Marvel yada yada ya.
Tony was the first to go.
It was unexpected and it was the first time they didn't fully recover.
Ironically it had nothing to do with Avengers business. No bad guys, no alien hell bent on Earth domination, nothing supernatural … just science, or a lack thereof in any case. It was a genetic thing, untreatable, only Bruce truly understood. But even then it was too late. It was hereditary too, Howard was already showing the first signs when he and Maria died in the car crash.
He didn't tell anyone about it, not even Jarvis. Only a handful of doctors knew, and they were sworn to secrecy.
He found out some months in advance and planned everything. He made Pepper's position as CEO unchangeable unless she chose to give it up or died, he gave her the entire company and put 'Potts' on the deed for the Tower. She owned 100% of Stark Industries.
He built orphanages and named them ridiculous things, inside jokes that only Clint and Natasha would understand. There were also dance studios and gymnastic halls for young children, especially abused and orphaned ones. He also set up a private accounts so that even if everything went to hell, neither would never be dependent on anyone again.
He made Bruce Head of R&D, his position also unchangeable. He also built Bruce a house, complete with a 'Hulk room' and labs, the arc reactor and Ironman patents and all the information for them were also Bruce's to do what he wanted with.
For Thor, he built Jane a lab and made sure she had enough money to continue her research, they also got a cute cottage just for the two of them.
He set up funds for soldiers in Steve's name. And art studios for people of all ages who couldn't afford it elsewhere. He also made sure Steve had an apartment in Brooklyn, only a couple streets down from where he had once lived with Bucky in the '40s. He made sure Steve would never be bothered by the tedious complexities, like banking and taxes and registrations, of the 21st century and had all his monetary and legal stuff go through SI, with Pepper over seeing it all.
When everything was finalised Tony made sure to gather them all for a movie night, he bought an extensive amount of pizza, pop tarts, apple pie, soda, ice cream and every other favourite food between them and once everyone else was asleep he snuck down to his lab and pulled out his arc reactor. He was in the last stages before he would become dependent on machines to keep him alive and people to take care of them. It would have been long and painful, so he decided to die the way he originally should have, shrapnel digging its way into the heart he denied he had.
Natasha went next.
She was out on a solo mission and never returned. Steve and Clint spent days searching for her body in the middle of nowhere. Neither hid the fact that they cried when they found her bloodied and broken body on a dirty blood stained floor. She had fought to the very end. They took her home and put her next to Tony.
Clint followed soon after.
Bruce, Steve and Thor had been counting the days since Natasha had died until he followed like they all knew he would. Partners in life, they knew where one went the other would always follow. So when he went on his next mission for S.H.I.E.L.D., one where he was tasked with ripping down those who had taken Natasha's life, they said goodbye and it was unspoken that they didn't expect him to come home. The bastards that took one of their own were found with a single arrow straight through the left eye, they deserved so much worse. Clint was found days later, a bullet through his brain. They put him on Natasha's other side.
Bruce was the next to go.
The Avengers had fallen with Tony and they had never accepted another into their ranks, but they continued to fight as they fell from five to four and then to three, when they fell to two it was long since over. Like the others before him he fell to poetic justice, a freak lab experiment gone wrong, on that not even the other guy could save him from. There was no body, it had been completely destroyed in the blast and the surrounding area killed with radiation. On some days Steve and Thor wondered if it truly was an accident. A marker stood with Tony, Natasha and Clint's final resting places.
Steve left second to last.
Years and decades and centuries passed before he left. He had first died and woken up in a different world. He adapted and grew and survived. He made a family of others so different yet so the same to him and slowly he lost them all again. The world changed around him and, as a 'too stupid to run' Brooklyn punk from the '40s he became evermore lost the more time passed.
As the only other being in the universe to wield Mjölnir, he was welcomed to Asgard by Thor's request and Odin's demand. But it was only once he slew a Storm Giant with a single blow of his shield was he truly welcomed by everyone other than Thor, to whom he was long since considered a brother. He had abandoned the uniform when he buried the others, choosing to dress in the garb of his new home. His shield no longer represented the Stars and Stripes of his birthplace, instead it bore the glowing blue of Tony's arc reactor, the bright red of Natasha's hair, the deep purple of Clint's favourite gauntlet, the intense green of Bruce's radiation tinged eyes, the insignia of the Howling Commandos and Asgardian script etched into the rim in shimmering gold.
He became Steven Rodgers-Odinson, brother of Thor and Warrior of Midgard and Asgard. Together with Sif and the Warriors Three, he and Thor defended the nine realms from those who sought to harm. Everyone learned to respect the mortal to whom the mighty Thor deferred to and spoke so highly of, he who was worthy of the power of Thor.
He stood at Thor's side through Odin's death and as he became King of Asgard. They fought together and Thor sought his advice on everything, the pair were brothers in a way none other have ever been. But no Asgardian, let alone a mortal, even a super-soldier with magic in his veins, can survive a Frost Giant's blow to the heart. And so he fell too, in Thor's arms, as he always should have, cold, and saving those in his splintered heart. For the second time in his long life he froze and when he woke, it was to a new world again. But he was welcomed by old faces.
Thor went last.
He ruled as King of Asgard and fell as one of the greatest and most loved. He had out lived everyone. From his dearly loved parents to the brother of his childhood that he killed. He had out lived his most beloved Jane. He had outlived the Warriors Three and Sif. He had out lived his fellow warriors, the Avengers. Man of Metal, Anthony; the Deadly Spider, Natasha, the archer, Clint; the 'giant one', Dr Banner; and his Captain and brother, Steven, the only man he would ever follow in to battle and everywhere else. He had watched them all live and die. And finally he joined them.
For it was Thor that had reminded those who remained after Tony took out his arc reactor, after Natasha fought to her end, after Clint walked willingly, after Bruce departed by his own hand and once Steve left his side and he had only himself to remind, it was Thor that always said: This is not farewell, but a temporary parting, for we shall meet again in the fields of Valhalla.
So, yeah.
Hope you liked it.
Also, I'm sort of writing another Avengers fic. It's (I hope) going to be a Steve/Clint bromancy type thing. I am having trouble though coming up with a name for a drag/gay bar from the '20s/'30, so if you have any ideas that I could use, I would be sooooooooo immensely in your debt. Bragging rights will be given :D.
-Nita