The sun went down for me (an Avengers: Endgame mini-fic)
Spoilers
Thanos has a little conversation with the shadow of young Gamora when he snapped his fingers to wipe out life, so... did Bruce get to see anything?
The pain was more than anything Bruce figured that either he or the Hulk had ever had to face... and Bruce had fallen from fatal heights more times than zero. Obviously, the original gauntlet was made of tougher stuff than anything Tony could build, but what choice did they have? Even if Thor was in any shape to take them to where he got his new weapon, the forge had a good chance of being unmanned at this point, and the Uru was probably all used up. Fighting the overwhelming pain, Banner had one thing to undo by snapping his fingers.
But he wanted to do something else on top of that...
As the reverse-cataclysm was unleashed into the universe, Banner’s mind went somewhere else. He opens his eyes to see himself not as the intelligent Hulk he had become, but as himself, back when he was hiding in India. No green skin, not gauntlet, just himself in a strange, glowing area, and a rickety shack in front of him... the same rickety shack where he met...
“... Nat?” Bruce calls out before running towards the nostalgic setting. “NAT!” He calls as he barges in. She stands facing a lop-sided window to the blinding void beyond them, wearing the same dress she wore when they first met. How easily he was bewitched by that dress.
“Nat! We have all of the stones! We can get you out of here!” Bruce pleads, hoping that she is really there and not just a hallucination brought on by brain damage by way of the iron gauntlet.
“I thought we needed all of the stones to bring back Thanos’s snap-victims.” Natasha responds, not looking at the man she was once able to awaken from his other half’s rampages. “I can’t help you from out there.”
“Well... uhh... maybe you can join them?” Bruce bargains, “Like, maybe after the dusted come back, you can hitch a ride before the door closes? or something like that? I don’t know! ANYTHING! PLEASE!” Bruce loses his composure rather quickly. “We need you.” Even in this plane of existence, Bruce’s tears cannot be withheld. Natasha finally turns around to face the man that held the fate of the universe in his hand... literally.
“Bruce,” the apparition of the once human weapon begins as she approaches. "I know this isn’t how you wanted it to go, but there are more people out there who need Clint than there are that need me. I’ve always been a better weapon than I have been a person. Without an enemy to fight, I’d just be collecting dust. Besides, you.. managed to make peace with your other half, and not all of us can say that.” She looks him in the eyes as she says all of this, but Bruce clearly isn’t buying it. “Big guy...” she had to pull out the big guns now, “The sun already went down for me. Now, I need you to make sure that it rises for everyone else. Okay?” She caresses his now tear-drowned cheek with one hand, her words clearly not quelling his broken heart.
“Hulk... not strongest there is...” Banner sobs, unable to even pretend that this isn’t painful... emotionally or otherwise. He couldn’t let the others see him like this, not now... so it was best to let it all out here.
“I’ll miss you, too, Bruce.” Natasha bids farewell as she rests her forehead against his one final time, before the blinding light of the reverse-snap consumes the illusion of what once was.
“Good bye, Natasha Romanov,” Bruce bids before returning to the spinning head and numb arm of his reality...
He tried to bring her back, but he still brought back what Thanos had snapped away.






