Thor heard Carol cry again, which broke his heart.
"I...there's nothing..."
What's given can be taken away.
"No...no, that's not..." Thor tried to comfort her.
"Without us, you're weak. You're flawed. Helpless...without us, you are only human." It angered her years ago to hear that. Now...it is a horrifying truth.
"Hey, stop that..." Thor gently scolded. "What are you saying? None of these things are true."
"They weren't yesterday." Carol pulled away, turning to face him. "I don't regret what I did. I...it was the right thing to do, I just...now what?"
Thor took her hand, and kissed it. "Now, we rest, we celebrate everyone's return, thanks to you. We enjoy each other's company..." He looked eager, really almost desperate on that last part. He had fallen head over heals in love with her.
After being lost all this time, who knew that finding love could just happen almost instantly?
She shook her head. "All my life, this current life I was living...I have been constantly trying to prove myself worthy of-"
Thor interrupted her again, but with a kiss. "You. Are. Worthy." He laughed. "And I should no, I'm a bit of an expert."
"Oh really?" Carol raised an eyebrow. For the first time in forever, she felt like she could finally let go and be herself and just breathe and laugh and live.
It was so freeing.
"I love you..." She slowly went in for another kiss as he enveloped her into his strong arms.
Thor only broke away long enough to reciprocate.
Bruce hung up on Scott with a small smile on his face. He was happy for the man. Never for himself, but a family was very important for people to get through this crazy life. And the fact that Scott was such a good father to his little girl, well, that little conversation just made Bruce's day.
He went down to where Stephen Strange was supposedly resting.
"Knock knock." Bruce smiled as he saw the doctor was meditating. "Sorry to interrupt..."
"No, it's alright, come in." Stephen slowly got up and sat down on the bed.
"How is everything?"
"Well, Steve seems to have made a full recovery, to my disbelief, and even more shocking is Carol seems to have-"
"I'm talking about you." Bruce raised a knowing eyebrow. "I know doctors are the worst patients."
"I'm fine. I just got a little winded having to literally reverse the curse of one of the most powerful objects in the entire multiverse-"
"Multiverse?" Bruce got curious, but quickly regressed. "For another time. Anyways, so you're ok? No side effects?"
"Nothing. Absolutely nothing. It's fine." Stephen reiterated.
"Ok..." Bruce looked down to the left. "Pick up that pencil. I want your autograph...from the man who helped save the universe."
At Bruce's smug smile, Stephen huffed. He stared down at the pencil like it was a bomb. "Sure." To his own shock, he picked up the utensil no problem, but by the time he got to the letter "h" it was all over. He was shaking so hard, he slammed it down onto the desk.
Bruce did not say anything for a minute. He felt awful for the man, but pity parties was not going to help this stubborn fool.
"Stephen?"
"What?" He annoyingly replied.
"Just take it easy, ok? You've been gone six months, and as soon as you're brought back, we just had our asses kicked for the third time now, and you had to perform a major life-threatening procedure on a man barely hanging on..." Bruce placed a hand on his shoulder. "Rest. Please. Otherwise, you're going to cause a lot more permanent damage to yourself than you already have."
Stephen nodded slowly, trying to hide his weaknesses and frustrations as Bruce left to give him some time to recover.
Peter snuggled down on the big sofa in the living room between his dads. It was so good to be home again.
"This is nice." He commented.
Steve ruffled his hair and Tony patted him on the back of the head. "It sure is, Pete."
Steve cut his eyes to Tony. "How are you feeling, Tony?"
"Hey, I'm not the one who literally went back in time and almost died ok, so I am not obligated to answer such a ridiculous question." He hugged Peter and gave Steve a warm smile. "I've never been better, if anyone's asking."
Steve rolled his eyes.
"Yeah, Pops, you were tiny, that's gotta be a bit weird to just suddenly be back to, you know, huge." Peter said.
"I'm good." Steve nodded. "I promise, I'm still a little bit exhausted, is all. But don't worry about me, I'll bounce back in no time."
Tony rolled his eyes. "Steve, we literally just saved the fu-dging universe. Take a day off. From the nightly workouts."
"I go at four in the morning."
"While it's still dark outside, and I've barely fallen asleep at that point."
Peter laughed. He had missed this so much. After two years of high tensions and terrible memories, he was so grateful to have everything back as it should be. He flipped the TV on and searched for a movie that his Pops desperately needed to see. There was a long list of things he unfortunately missed out on.
Back home, Natasha pulled the blankets up tighter around her sleeping babies. Tears of joy streamed down her sharp cheeks as she just watched them sleep in her arms.
Clint sat back down with a bag of chips from the kitchen, turning the game down so as not to disturb them.
"Everything ok?" He asked his wife.
"Everything is perfect."
She would be perfectly fine for spending the rest of her days right here, in this moment.