thirty two : they're all back

      "DID WE GET 'EM ALL?" THAT WAS THE FIRST THING ELAINE HEARD WHEN SHE RETURNED BEFORE EVERYTHING ELSE TURNED INTO WHITE NOISE. Elaine fell to her knees with a hand over her stomach. There was a silence as Bruce asked Clint where Nat was.

      The pure silence was the only answer he got. Everyone knew Natasha was dead.

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Elaine couldn't go outside with her friends. So she sat by the window and watched them with her head lying against the cold glass. FRIDAY kept trying to speak to her, but the UI went unnoticed.

There was only one thing on her mind. Her best friend. During the five years half the planet was gone, Natasha was really the only person Elaine cared for. Nobody else seemed to care about them, so they cared for each other. Elaine helped Natasha with her problems, and Natasha helped Elaine.

Without knowing it, Elaine began drifting off into another sleep with another dream.

ASGARD — IN ELAINE'S DREAM

Something was different. The air was odd. Her skin was itching. It was familiar, Elaine waking up in a dream like this. Her eyes stung when they opened and were met with a blinding bright sun, which made her hand instinctively come up to shield herself from the rays of light.

      Elaine was wearing a silk finer than any cloth on Earth, which is why her skin itched with unfamiliarity. She quickly stood, careful not to trip on the dress around her body. Shutting the curtains and dimming the room, Elaine leaned against them and shut her eyes while letting out a breath of relief.

      "I was wondering when you would finally fall asleep." The accent of the oddly attractive voice was all too familiar. Opening her eyes, standing in the doorway of the beautiful room was Loki. He was wearing an all black suit, his hair was long and black, and he looked at her as if she was everything. And to him, she was.

      "You're not even real." She scoffed, scratching her forehead. "You say you're Thor's brother, adopted, you try to tell me something in these god-awful dreams, and when will you stop dressing me in these itchy clothes!" Elaine snapping at the end wasn't personal, she was just so tired.

      "Elaine, you must believe I'm real. Sort of. But the only reasoning behind your failure, is you." His voice was weirdly soft for someone who was supposed to be the God of Mischief. Maybe this was all a mind trick to keep her from going insane. Loki laughed from reading her mind. "I am not trying to trick you, Elaine. I just ask for you to listen."

      Elaine nodded, shrugging with sarcasm. "It's not like I have anywhere important to be."

      "Delightful." His dull tone made Elaine know that whatever he was telling her was going to be depressing. "Before Asgard was demolished, Thor sent myself to retrieve an item to assist and aid in killing our sister. Instead of just taking the artifact, I took the Tesseract stored nearby."

      Elaine was taking in each word. "The same Tesseract from Earth you came to take in 2012." Elaine then realized something as the pieces clicked together. "Thanos sent you to do that."

      "Good girl." His husky voice became deeper as he continued. "You are a good listener despite not wanting to listen. But the story does not end there. Thanos sensed the Tesseract, which housed one of six Infinity Stones; the Space Stone. I was killed by Thanos trying to outsmart him, and that is where my story ends. Elaine, you must bring everyone back before Thanos comes."

      Elaine quickly became confused. "What? Come back? Thor killed Thanos five years ago."

      "Darling, your friends travelled back in time, seeing themselves but in the past. Thanos—"

      "Still exists in the past." Elaine concluded. Loki nodded to confirm, and Elaine gave a small smile. "Thank you, Loki. But how will I remember this when I wake up?"

      Loki gave Elaine an odd look as the walls around them began to disappear. "Don't crush yourself trying to remember this. It will come back, I promise. Goodbye, Elaine."

      "What does that mean—"

      BACK IN THE PRESENT

Snapping awake, Elaine rubbed the sore spot on her head from the glass window. There was something on the tip of her tongue, but when she tried to find it, it disappeared.

      Elaine shook it off and waited for them to come back inside, and when they did, they began to work on putting the stones in the gauntlet Tony made.

      Watching from a distance, she saw Rocket mischievously chuckling after he yelled, "Boom!" to scare Tony and Thor. The gauntlet accepted the stones— or more like the stones accepted the gauntlet — and they fell into place. The only step left was for someone to snap their fingers.

      And Elaine could say right now, there wasn't any volunteers. Well, not any sober ones.

      "All right, the glove's ready. Question is, who's gonna snap their freakin' fingers?" Rocket asked, everyone surrounding the glove at a safe distance.

      "I'll do it." Thor volunteered, which made Elaine scoff.

      "Excuse me?" Tony asked, confused.

      "It's okay." Thor assured, trying to walk to the glove. Tony and Steve both stopped Thor, who was pausing in his steps.

      "Thor. Just wait. We haven't decided who's gonna put that on yet." Steve told his friend, who was smelling up the room the longer everyone stayed in their spots.

      "I'm sorry. What, we're all just sitting around waiting for the right opportunity?" Thor said in disbelief that they were waiting when they could do it right now.

      "We should at least discuss it." Scott suggested, including his opinion just to stall Thor a little from trying to put the stupid gauntlet on.

Elaine sat back as they argued, looking out the window and wondering how long it'll be before she sees her sister again.

"Look, sitting here staring at the thing is not gonna bring everybody back. I'm the strongest Avenger, okay? So this responsibility falls upon me." Thor quickly shut Tony down when the billionaire tried to interrupt again. "Stop it! Just let me. Just let me do it. Just let me do something good. Something right."

"Look," Elaine finally spoke. All eyes turned to her. "It's not just the fact that the glove is channeling enough energy to take down our universe, I'm telling you that you're in no condition."

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

"Cheese Whiz?" Rhodes guessed with his arms crossed.

"Beer?" Elaine added with shrug.

After an awkward pause, Thor answered his own question. "Lightning."

"Lightning won't help you, pal." Bruce interjected, standing up. "It's gotta be me. You saw what those stones did to Thanos. They almost killed him. None of you could survive."

"How do we know you will?" Elaine asked.

"We don't. But the radiation's mostly gamma. It's like I was made for this." Bruce sighed, looking at the glove before picking it up.

"Good to go, yeah?" Tony asked.

"Let's do it." Bruce finalized.

"Okay, remember, everyone Thanos snapped away five years ago you're just bringing them back to now, today. Don't change anything from the last five years."

"Got it." Bruce nodded.

Everyone prepared themselves for what was about to happen. Scott closed the helmet on his suit, Rhodes following suit, Thor covered Rocket, Tony exposed his suit and used a solid hologram shield to cover Clint, and Elaine used Rhodes as a shield since she had yet to find the dumb key to her power-removing bracelets.

After Tony activated the Barn Door Protocol just incase this went wrong and nobody outside the compound would be hurt.

"Everybody comes home." Bruce mumbled, the glove enlarging itself to fit his giant hand. Once the glove was fully on, some kind of white noise emitted from the stones firing up.

"Take it off! Take it off!" Thor shouted, making Elaine's head snap to him.

"He's right! Bruce take it off!" Elaine yelled over the noise and bright light.

"No, wait. Bruce are you okay?" Steve asked a moaning and groaning Bruce who was kneeling on the floor. The stones were burning through his shirt and into his arm.

"Talk to me, Banner." Tony demanded in a calmer tone, but for a few seconds the sound of burning flesh and the colors of the stones in his arm was the only thing anyone heard and saw.

"I'm okay. I'm okay." Bruce panted, relieving everyone.

With one final scream, and a clink of metal, the glove fell off and Bruce collapsed fully onto his back.

Everyone rushed to him, Clint kicking the glove away and Elaine trying to make sure Bruce was alive. Tony closed the burns on Bruce with some sort of chemical from his suit.

"Did it work?" Bruce panted out, his large chest heaving.

"We're not sure. It's okay." Thor assured his friend as Elaine followed Scott to the room nearby with windows. The Barn Door Protocol was lifted and a wave of bright lights beamed directly onto Elaine and Scott.

Birds chirping. That was a sound Elaine hadn't heard in months. The sun was actually bright and shining with pleasure. A small chuckle was released from Elaine as a huge smile took over her face.

"Guys.." Scott whispered in shock. A shock that Elaine had never seen. "I think it worked."

"Hell yeah it did." Elaine laughed in glee, feeling more life in her body.

But then her life continued in slow motion. A large rocket hurling its way through the sky and directly at the compound. The force of the blast blew Elaine into an unknown direction, but Elaine could feel everything happening and see it all. The small particles of dirt and concrete and glass floated around her like a soft cloud.

When she looked around, she tried to grab something to stop her fall, or maybe she wasn't falling, she couldn't tell. Her head suddenly crashed into an object, maybe a pipe or a rock. A large rock, larger than Thanos himself suddenly landed on top of Elaine, and crushed everything below her chest.

All Elaine wished was that she didn't get absolutely crushed in the process.

How ironic.

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ha! see what i did there? i know i'm so funny. anyway, how are we feeling about this chapter?