GUYS!

GGGUUUYYYYSSSS!

I legit just saw Endgame today.

No...just no.

But also...so much YES!

Anyway...it's been a long time between chapters, but I was sitting on this one being a quarter written and was just waiting on Endgame to give me some extra fuel and motivation. So here it is!

I want to thank you to everyone who is still here from way back when this one started.

I would also like to thank you to all those that have just joined recently. I couldn't help but notice the lovely reviews I've gotten since the release of Endgame, so I can only assume there are some people who needed more Avengers fix after seeing it. Thanks for choosing me!

Thanks must go to my reviewers since my last chapter: JaliceJelsa4eva, Scarlet Jones, pOmelO, rosafern

And thanks to all those that have joined me since then: briannahlopes, 184881, Emerald Monkey, 707cloud, tricia11114, Edward Cullen's Girl, ScarletJ15, mafiaprinecss01, KeepCalmAndLoveKitKats, thecruelworldwelivein, Ar3miss, mia-dixon-12, RaysonInTheSun, kd123, SkylerBlack, craftychick1110, asulzby, Daughter Of Freedom, KeniaHeras, Trixxi13, Regin, Tsuna De Vongola Decimo, ohhaymisskay, Shopaholic-Pixxie, tammymikaelson-downey, cocopop123, HuntressForTheWolves, Vladvanmoria, Inu-Hanyou2016, garnet011295, SilverKitsuneGrlAngel, BlueMetalXavier, Jessica St Godard, SophieNewman, Jdbecky21, Lahlahh12, KahlanDanvers1988, IssaQveen, Aerynjean, lizziecats, Lone-Wolf761.

WOW that's a lot of names to get through. Sorry if I missed anyone.

Now...big important announcement.

***SPOILER ALERT***

From this chapter onwards, there will start to be spoilers for Endgame. If you haven't seen it yet and don't want it spoilt...DO NOT READ FROM HERE ON.

If you've seen it, or god forbid, don't care, please...enjoy.

xo

Chapter 28

Moving Through It

When Lex regained consciousness, she noticed two things. The first, the great pain shooting through her head currently. It had been a long time since she had to maintain a fight against unnatural strength like this for such a long time.

The second thing she noticed was the strange stone formation that was currently trapping her to the ground. She tried to move and free herself, but it was quite a snug fit.

She began wiggling free from her stone prison, thankful for her slender frame as she slipped out from beneath the stone and earth. She was quick to look for the others.

She stumbled into the clearing where she found the others gathered. She looked around at their faces, getting all the answers she needed, they'd lost. She noticed Steve sitting on the ground, his face gaunt and distressed, also noting the strange ash that seemed to have settled on the ground around him.

When she stepped forward, several of those gathered there looked up at her, she noted that Natasha seemed relieved somewhat. Their reaction had her curious, until she saw what else was lying before Steve.

Vision's lifeless and colourless body lay beside Steve. The Mind Stone was ripped from his head and his eyes stared into space, all life gone. She bit her lip and felt somewhat guilty. She was quick to push those feelings away when she remembered the last person she had seen with Vision. "How's Wanda?"

Natasha took a sharp breath, looking away quickly. Lex furrowed her brow at the reaction, before looking around at the others again. She noted that Rocket looked miserable and his Tree friend was no where to be seen. She looked at the others again, noting that they seemed to be missing at least half of their comrades.

There was one person in particular who she noticed first and foremost was missing. She looked to Steve, who still hadn't looked up to meet her gaze. "Steve," Lex murmured, trying to gain his attention. He turned his head slightly but didn't look at her. "Where is Bucky?"

She saw Steve's lips tighten into a straight line as his jaw clenched. He didn't respond to her. She looked to Natasha. The Russian looked sympathetically back at her, but also did not respond.

It was Thor who spoke. "My dear lady, he is gone…"

Lex's eyes went wide. "What?" she breathed, her voice hitching slightly in her throat.

"Thanos did it. He ceased the existence of half the universe," Thor replied.

Lex pursed her lips, staring at the Asgardian for a moment. Her breaths became shallow and she felt clammy all over. Lex looked to Steve again, who finally turned to look at her. She saw it in his eyes. Thor was right, Bucky was gone.

She swallowed and licked her lips, before trying to formulate something to say. Anything at all. But nothing would come to her. Her lips began to move, but not of her own volition and instead vibrating violently, as she felt her cheeks and eyes begin to heat. Thor moved to stand beside her, resting a hand on her shoulder.

She shrugged it off, gritting her jaw and glaring up at him before moving to walk away. She had barely moved a few steps when Okoye burst through the trees, a look of horror on her face.

"He is gone!" she exclaimed. She fell to the ground at Lex's feet. Lex stared at the General for a moment, unsure of how to react at the General's behavior. The stoic and witty Dora Milaje leader that she had grown close to in the last few months, was currently hysterical as she began to cry. "T'Challa! He is nothing but ash!"

Lex's brows knitted together in confusion, before she looked back to where Steve and Rocket both sat. They were surrounded by ash. Her eyes went wide when she realized what she was looking at. "No…" she breathed.

"I saw it myself," Okoye sobbed.

Lex looked back at the General in bewilderment, before her face became expressionless and she reached down, hoisting Okoye to her feet. The General looked at her sadly. "We need to check on Shuri, Ramonda and M'Baku."

Okoye gaped for a moment, her face expression becoming one of shock, but she was quick to nod before hurrying away towards the palace.

Lex went to move too, but Natasha called out to her. "Lex, wait." Lex looked back towards the Russian, no expression evident on her face, as Natasha looked from Lex down to Steve.

Steve got to his feet, looking back at Lex. "I'm sorry."

She narrowed her eyes at him, before looking at the others standing in the clearing and watching her with sad expressions, her own expression blank as she took each of them in. Her eyes returned to Steve before she spoke to again. "I've got shit to do."

Lex had returned to the palace to find that at least half of the guard were gone, although Shuri had managed to survive. The Dora Milaje and Kingsguard that had been protecting her had sadly both vanished into ash. M'Baku had joined them and contacted his tribe in the mountains, and they had confirmed losses as well, but Ramonda was still amongst their numbers.

She had heard from Okoye what had happened while she was unconscious, her mind reeling from the information. Through her own deduction, she figured that Thanos had accomplished what he had set out to do. He evened out the universe, erasing half the population from existence.

She sat with her back against a wall in a hallway of the palace, thinking about everything she had endured in the past few months. Was this karma for her sins? Was this what she got for seeking revenge on the Red Room and HYDRA? Or was this karma for hiding from the world for so long? A breeze blew through the halls, ash shifting along the ground past her. She glanced at the wispy material, watching as it circled along the ground before settling again. Which Dora or Kingsguard was that, she wondered.

She had lived a long time, she had seen a lot of death, by both her own hands and at the hands of others. So why did she feel this way? She didn't understand what was happening right now. She felt like she had been stabbed in the chest, without the actual excruciating pain. It was like a metaphorical pain, like a big hole was there. She didn't understand it at all. The Red Room never prepared her for…this.

She was still dressed in her armour, her knees tucked up against her chest as she sat on the floor. Alien blood and guts spattered across her armour in different places, but she didn't care. She couldn't stop trying to figure out what had just happened, and why she was feeling this way.

As she sat there, she felt something stinging her eyes. They were hot and she realized they were suddenly very moist. She reached up and touched her cheek, realizing that it was also wet, pulling her hand away to see water mingling with the blood from her wounds. She narrowed her eyes slightly as she tried to figure out what was happening.

"I'm going to guess that crying isn't something you've done a lot of?" came a voice. She looked up to see Steve standing at the doorway from the council room where he had been speaking with what was left of the Wakandan council and those that had fought against Thanos' forces.

She looked at him in confusion before looking back at her fingers as she rubbed them with the tip of her thumb. Was that what was happening? She tried to think back to the last time she could recall crying. One thought came to mind. The day her father killed her mother. The day she saw her mother fall to the floor, her eyes lifeless, in a pool of blood. That was the last time she recalled this feeling.

And she had vowed never to feel this way again.

A rush of memories hit her. This feeling. She hated it. She had vowed never to get close to anyone ever again. She never wanted to spill tears for a loved one, so she refused to love anyone, or even get close enough to consider shedding tears over them. She grit her teeth, clenching a fist as she thought about.

She messed up. Again.

She had let herself become compromised. She became attached. This was not meant to happen.

Lex looked up as Steve moved towards her, tensing immediately. Steve raised his hands, looking apologetic, before kneeling and looking at her sympathetically. "You haven't lost anyone that you were close to in a while, huh?"

She clenched her jaw slightly, thinking carefully about how to answer Steve. "What makes you think I care what happens to any of you?" she retorted coldly.

Steve raised a single eyebrow, appraising her for a moment. "You can deny it to yourself all you like, but I saw the way you were with Bucky." At the mere mention of his name, Lex felt like someone had just stabbed her multiple times in the chest. The pain must have showed on her face because Steve quickly reached forward and rested his hand on her arm. "Hey, it's okay."

She threw off his hand, glaring at him. "No. It's not. I'm done with you people. I should never have got involved with any of you!"

She quickly got to her feet and moved to storm off. Before she could even take a few steps, Steve's hand had grabbed her wrist, reeling her around and she slammed into his chest. She tried to force him back, but he wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly in place.

"I'm sorry, Lex, but Bucky would get angry at me if I just let you go like that," he murmured as she began to wriggle and try to wrench herself from his grasp, but it was like all her strength had been sapped from her. His arms around her tensed, but she could feel no malicious intent to them. He just held her. She felt him lean his face closer to her ear. "I know I'm not Bucky, but he would want you to know that sometimes it's just better to let it all out, don't hold it in. You're not a monster, you've got emotions and you need to let them out."

At the mention of Bucky, Lex felt the anxiety and emotions inside her beginning to build again. "I…" she began to try and argue, trying to break Steve's grip on her, but while her brain was activating its fight mode, her body didn't seem to be listening. She felt her eyes beginning to heat more, and finally she broke down, tears flowing freely and her breathing rapid and unsteady. Her arms seemed to move on their own, as she clung to Steve, burrowing her face into his chest as her sobbing became louder.

Steve didn't seem uncomfortable by his closeness to her, he loosened his grip on her slightly, using one hand to pat her gently on the back, the other maintaining its hold around her. He rested his head against hers. "It's okay," he murmured again in a low soothing voice. "I'll figure out a way to bring him back, even if it's the last thing I do."

Lex looked around the shopping mall as she sipped on her cup of coffee. The one perk after the snap was, she needn't look over her shoulder so much. There were more pressing matters in the world over HYDRA.

The people that walked around the mall were subdued, as seemed to be common place in the world at the present time. Everyone had lost someone, or several if they were extremely unlucky. The thought had her bite her lip between sips of coffee, remembering how many of her friends were now gone.

Steve had called her back to the US capital. While the rest of the remaining Avengers continued to try and figure out what to do and continue to try and secure the world, she had refused to be of service, instead staying in Wakanda and taking residence in the mountains not far from M'Baku's tribe. She found the cold comforting. She did not maintain contact with Shuri, Ramonda or the Avengers. And any contact with M'Baku's tribe was for trade only, refusing to meet the Jabari leader and threatening him more than once when he tried to see her.

The Avengers had tried to call on her once before, and she had refused. The pain was still too raw and she did not want to be involved with them. She felt like any attempt to return the world to what it once was, was a futile attempt. She had seen times change through decades; she would continue to do so, alone. Or so she thought. From messages left on her phone, it seemed she was right. Their attempt had been futile. Thanos had destroyed the stones. Their affects were now irreversible.

Nearly six years after the snap, when Steve had called this time, something in his voice made her decide to respond to his request. She didn't know why, the stones were gone. But, something niggled at her, it made her curious. She had not directly answered his call, only listening to the message he left, and opting to make her own way there in her own time and see if she could find out herself what they had planned.

She watched as a child, a young girl, walked hand in hand with an elderly woman. Both looked sad and tired. She wondered if they were both related, or if like so many, the child had been placed in the woman's care due to losing her family. Lex sighed, before taking another sip.

As she was about to get up and make her way back to her hotel, she heard familiar footsteps approaching from her right. She sighed and shook her head as someone pulled the chair out across from her and sat down.

"Low profile not your thing anymore?" Natasha asked, looking at her with raised eyebrows.

Lex narrowed her eyes. "What's the point? Bigger fish to fry in the world now days."

Natasha frowned but nodded. "Steve tell you what's happening?"

"I know I don't need to tell you what he told me; you were probably there." She sighed and shook her head before throwing her empty cup the five metres to the closest bin. Several shoppers raised their eyebrows at the action as they walked past, but Lex ignored them. "And, you'll also know, technically, I didn't answer."

"But you're here."

Lex fixed Natasha with a pointed glare. "I'm beginning to regret that decision already."

"He asked me to keep an eye out for you."

"Let me guess, he knew I would come?"

Natasha looked sympathetically at her. "He was worried about you."

Lex screwed up her nose in response, before narrowing her eyes, something about what Natasha said had her concerned. "Wait, have you...". She shook her head and rolled her eyes. "Sure, let's go with that." Steve took this leader business far too seriously sometimes, especially when you considered that she was older than him. She had a feeling she had been watched on occasion. Lex fixed Natasha with a serious look. "And, how have you been?"

Natasha's expression didn't change, but she sighed. "Working through it."

Lex pinned her with a pointed look. She didn't believe that for a second. Natasha appeared to have aged, dramatically, even for the time that had past. She looked like she hadn't slept well in years. Not that she blamed her, it wasn't like she did either. "Well, you've got me now, I guess you better take me to your leader."

Natasha cocked her head to one side, and the slightest shadow of a smile swept across her face. "Wow. A joke?"

"Please, I'm three quarters sarcasm," Lex answered, rolling her eyes and standing up.

Steve turned as Natasha walked into the room. "Where'd you go?" he asked as she shrugged off her jacket.

Natasha smirked, and motioned to the entrance she had just walked through with her head. "Picked up something at the mall." Steve was confused, albeit slightly pleased. Natasha hadn't gotten out much lately, diving head first into her work of coordinating the remaining Avengers to continue their work around the globe.

He was more stunned when he saw the tall blonde walk through the door, looking around the room with mild curiosity. Her gaze met his, but there was no smile, or mischievous greeting like the old Lex would have done. She nodded once, stopping where she was and continuing to flick her eyes around the room. No doubt, scanning for exits and hostiles.

"It's good to see you, Lex," Steve greeted, deciding not to close the gap between them. He hadn't heard from her in nearly six years, not for lack of trying, and from all accounts of their Wakandan counterparts, she had been careful to ensure that not many others heard much from her either.

She was wearing denim and a large green hoodie, with only a small amount of hair exposed beneath the hood. Her once blonde locks, which apparently had not been natural, were a rich brown at the roots. She looked tired too, her once vibrant and lively face, now shadowed around the eyes.

She leant against the doorway. "What did you want me here for?"

He grimaced slightly at the cold edge to her voice. "We might have a way to turn everything around."

Steve saw her frown, shaking her head slightly, before standing up again and sighing. "This again. How well did it work out for you last time?"

"This time, it's different."

"Really? I highly doubt that."

"Man, this place is awesome!" They all looked to the other side of the room as Scott Lang appeared, an armful of food. "Oh, hey! Super Soldier Lady, what was your name? Lex!"

Steve smiled lightly at Scott. His personality never seemed to be low, even in the worst situations. He looked back at Lex, to see her staring at Scott. She glanced back at Steve. "Please, don't tell me this is your different?"

Steve grimaced and cocked his head slightly. "Well…"

"Lang figured out a way for us to fix this," Natasha piped up, drawing Lex's attention to her. The female Super Soldier narrowed her eyes as she looked between them, one foot in the door, the other poised to leave. She glanced from Natasha, to Scott and then back to Steve.

He looked at her imploringly. "Please, Alexia. I want to fix this." She quickly looked away again, folding her arms across her chest.

She sighed. "You've got five minutes."

Feels good to be back!

xo

Krayzee