Neil Gaiman, Neil Gaiman’s Midnight Days (via larmoyante)

at some point, they’ve all been punched in the face with it:

‘everybody dies.’

and they know that, everyone knows that, on a basic, biological level. everyone sort of accepts it, sort of stores it in the back of their mind, but it always takes a while for it to really sink in.

usually, it’s when someone you love dies.

for steve, it was his mother- her hair thinning out around the edges, like her skin, her breath. thinning out around the edges until it stopped completely, and steve was left with a cooling body in his hands.

then again, after staying on that damn train, holding on when he has barely any reason to, going numb from the wind and almost making his hand let go, so he can fall after bucky.

it always hits them, and it’s always at the worst times, it’s always like a suckerpunch that makes you choke on your own blood, your own fist.

it hits, and it keeps hitting, until they’re on the ground and begging over a split lip and swollen eyes.

every one of the avengers has had to face it. has had to stand over graves, or makeshift ones, or an empty coffin because it’d be useless to even try to find the body.

tony’s been nineteen and on his second bottle of whatever, smashing old picture frames and the tv whenever it shows the news report again.

thor’s been standing over a looming bridge, thinking brother and i could’ve-

clint, bruce, natasha- orphanages and funeral homes, dead parents, dead siblings, dead, dead.

ashes to ashes, dust to what the fuck ever.

and they’re all going to die, they know that.

more likely sooner than regular folk, given how many vital organs they manage to puncture on a weekly basis.

they’re all going to die, and it’s not going to be at the same time, not in a huge explosion that rocks the entirety of manhattan and takes out a dozen or so blocks with them.

they’ve all imagined it, more than once- a gun pressed to the roof of their mouth. pills under their tongues. maybe self-inflicted, maybe not.

(they all have bad days.)

a sceptre to the ribs, falling into the mountains, overdoses, bleeding out on the snow.

they’ve all been close to it, and they’ve all been breathing in rapid-fire bursts, heart clattering around in their chests until it turns sluggish and their eyes roll back.

natasha has been barking into a comm over tony’s crumpled body, over clint’s, and they’ve been doing the same to hers at least twice. 

too many hospital visits, too many close calls, too many stop being such a self-sacrificing bastard-s and waiting with their hearts in their throats as they wait for each other to reappear.

steve’s held tony’s hand and pushed it over the hole in his stomach, listened to the stutter of his breath, the hoarse, bitter laugh. he’s kissed his bloodied lips in a blur of i’m never going to get another chance, and he’s done it again when tony had woken up attached to an IV.

they’re all going to die, but here’s the thing:

none of them are going to die alone.

(via theappleppielifestyle)