Ashes.

They were all inside sitting at a table. Tony was getting treated as holographs passed by. Jack’s presence was addressed. Natasha told everyone that he was there to help and was sent by Wong.

“It’s been 23 days since Thanos came to Earth.” A man he learned was called Rhodey, said.

“World governments are in pieces. The parts that are still working are trying to take a census. And it looks like he did…he did exactly what he said he was gonna do. Thanos wiped out fifty percent of all living creatures.” Natasha said.

The reality hit Jack hard. He was too focused on his own misery he forgot to think about how affected the world is now. Hell, the universe.

“Tell me about it.” Rhodey agreed.

“Where is he now?” Tony asked, “Where?”

“We don’t know. He just opened a portal and walked through.” Blondie said. Jack now knew that his name was actually Steve, but he preferred Blondie. He looked like a supermodel.

“What’s wrong with him?” Tony pointed to a man sitting on a bench with a melancholy facial expression.

“Oh, he’s pissed. He thinks he failed. Which of course he did, but you know there’s a lot of that going around, ain’t there?” The raccoon guy said.

“Honestly, until this exact second, I thought you were a build-a-bear.” Tony said dumbfounded.

“Maybe I am.” Raccoon guy replied. Jack doubted that raccoon guy even knew what a build-a-bear was.

Jack shook off all of my unimportant questions and spoke up. “But is there any way to track him? Maybe we can find him and hunt him down and fix this mess.”

“We’ve been hunting Thanos for three weeks now, Jack. Deep Space scans and satellites and we got nothing.” Blondie said and turned to Tony. “Tony, you fought him.”

“Who told you that? I didn’t fight him. No, he wiped my face with a planet while the Bleecker Street Magician gave away the store. That’s what happened. There was no fight. He’s unbeatable.” Tony answered.

“Did he give you any clues, any coordinates, anything?”

“Pfft! I saw this coming a few years back. I had a vision. I didn’t wanna believe it. Thought I was dreaming.”

This made Jack wonder if Sandy or most likely Pitch saw this coming somehow when giving out dreams or more realistically, nightmares but shoved it off as just a dream that they also didn’t want to believe.

“Tony, I’m gonna need you to focus.” Blondie said.

“And I needed you. As in past tense. That trumps what you need.” Tony seethed. It reminded Jack how he used to feel about the Guardians. He needed them and they weren’t there until they needed him. He shakes his head, things have changed since then. “It’s too late buddy. Sorry. You know what I need?” He stood up and pushed things off of the table with a clatter.

“I need to shave and I remember telling all youse…” he ripped out his medication.

“Tony, Tony, Tony!” Rhodey tried to stop Tony from getting to Blondie and having a fist fight. Jack had a feeling that with those biceps, Blondie would definitely win. Doesn’t help that Tony looks like a bunch of twigs.

“...Alive and otherwise that what we needed was a suit of armor around the world! Remember that? Whether it impacted our precious freedoms or not- that’s what we needed!” Tony shouted. They probably had this conversation before, Jack thought and started to shrink on himself, watching it all go down.

“Well, that didn’t work out, did it?” Blondie said, surprisingly calm.

“I said, we’d lose. You said, ‘we’ll do that together too’ and guess what, Cap? We lost. And you weren’t there. But that’s what we do right? Our best work after the fact? We’re the Avengers. We’re the Avengers. Not the Prevengers. Right?”

“You made your point.” Rhodey said, “just sit down.”

“Nah, nah. Here’s my point. You know what?” Tony walked up to Blondie. “I got nothing for you, Cap! I got no coordinates, no clues, no strategies, no options, Zero. Zip. Nada. No trust. Liar.” Tony said. There is an awkward silence before Tony tore off something on his chest and places it in Blondie’s hand. Jack thought that the thing had to do with his superhero suit. Maybe the armor he’s talking about?

“Here, take this. You find him, and you put that on…You hide.” Tony said before he fell to his knees. They started to gather around him.

“I’m fine!” Tony said but then fell unconscious.

__

Tony was moved to a bed with the woman who he now knew as Pepper, Tony’s fiance.

“Bruce gave him a sedative. He’s gonna probably be out for the rest of the day.” Rhodey said.

Carol Danvers, the woman who saved Tony and the alien, Nebula said, “you guys take care of him and I’ll bring him a Xorrian Elixir when I come back.” She started to walk away.

“Where are you going?” Jack asked.

“To kill Thanos.”

Jack, Natasha, and Blondie shared a look before chasing after her.

“Hey, you know, we usually work as a team here, and between you and I, morale’s a little fragile.” Natasha said.

“We realize up there is more your territory, but this is our fight too.” Blondie said.

“Yeah, come on. I can fly too,” Jack said.

“Not to space,” Carol said and Jack faltered.

“Do you even know where he is?” Rhodey asked.

“I know people who might.” Carol said.

“Don’t bother. I can tell you where Thanos is.” Nebula said. “Thanos spent a long time trying to perfect me. And when he worked, he talked about his great plan. Even disassembled, I wanted to please him. I’d ask “where would we go after his plan was complete?”. His answer was always the same: “To the Garden.”

“It’s cute that he has a retirement plan.” Rhodey said sarcastically.

“Yeah and ironic that his retirement plan is so peaceful compared to how much murder he just committed,” Jack adds.

“Kind of a hypocrite if you ask me,” Rhodey said.

“So where is he?” Blon- *sigh* Steve asked.

Then the raccoon guy who he learned calls himself Rocket said, “When Thanos snapped his fingers, Earth became ground zero for a power surge of ridiculously cosmic proportions. No one’s ever seen anything like it. Until two days ago. ” He shows a hologram of a shockwave on the surface of a planet.

“Thanos is there,” Nebula said.

“He used the stones again.” Natasha said.

“Hey, hey, hey. We’d be going in short-handed, you know.” The scientist, Bruce Banner said.

“Look, he’s still got the stones, so…” Rhodey started.

“We gotta get him and then use the stones to undo the snap and bring everyone back.” Jack concluded.

“Just like that?” Rhodey asked.

“Yeah, just like that.” Steve said.

“Even if there’s a small chance that we can undo this…I mean we owe it to everyone who’s not in this room to try.” Natasha said. Jack felt a dash of deja vu to his conversation with Sophie.

“But if we do this now, how do we know that it’s going to end any differently than it did before?” Jack asked.

“Because before you didn’t have me.” Carol said.

“Hey new girl, everyone here is about that superhero life. And if you don’t mind my asking, where the hell have you been all this time?” Rhodey questioned.

“There are a lot of other planets in the universe. And unfortunately, they didn’t have you guys.” She clarified.

The pissed guy, Thor, walked up to Carol and stared her in her eyes when he held out his arm to summon his weapon. The axe met his hand and blew back her hair and she didn't even flinch.

“I like this one.” Thor said.

Steve stared at the hologram. “Let’s go get this son of a bitch.”