Chapter 3
Holy shit. you need to stop watching the news… or watch it more, you don’t know. you do know that there’s a big ass spaceship in New York though. you make a quick grab for your cell phone, almost having it fall out of your hands because you can’t tear your eyes away from the screen. Emergency contacts, a lovely feature on phones. Listening to it ring longer and longer, way less fun. Finally the line opens.
“Wong!” you almost shouted into the receiver. “Yeah, yeah, I’m here” he responded. you let out a sign of relief. “What is going on in New York, I just saw the news?” you questioned, speaking too quickly to get the words out quite right. “Aliens attacked, I’m guarding the sanctum..”
“You’re what?” you interrupted him, “ Strange usually takes the reins on that.” After a sigh Wong continues “ There’s people after the infinity stones. Strange has been taken, Tony too, and I believe a child as well.” he finishes. you can’t help letting out a nervous laugh, laughing through a quite high pitched “What?”. Wong only lets out a slow breath on the other end. “Okay, give me like three seconds to process this” you manage to stutter out, before taking a deep breath myself. “Do you want me there, or should I get in touch with the other half of the scooby gang?”
“I can manage here, there’s probably people after the mind stone as well” he instructed.
“Stay alive” you demanded before hanging up the phone. Then dialing up another number, this one answered much faster.” “Rogers” you said once again filled with nerves that it wouldn’t be him responding. “Y/N, good to hear from you” he replied. you wanted to waste no time. “Where are you, and what are we doing”
“Scotland. Wanda missed a check in, and there seems to be odd sightings around the area.” he filled you in. “Okay, send me the location and I'll meet you there.” you say before hanging up. you got a text shortly after with a meet up spot.
We see fighting at a train station and begin running. They’ve got Wanda cornered, still, not the person I’d want to piss off if I were them. They stop once they see a dark silhouette behind the moving train, as it passes Rodgers stepped out of the dark to reveal himself. Always so dramatic. It does take them off guard though, so Falcon can fly in and kick the blue one full force. Then everyone joins in. The blue lady was shot through to some sort of dining area. The rest of the crew went to focus on the big one. you ran over to her as she tried to stand, kicking her to the ground. She took the opportunity to grab your foot and toss you over her and onto the glass covered floor. you could feel the glass burrow its way into your skin. you reached out and grabbed one of the metal chairs that were littered across the floor and threw it at her as she was trying to stand, bringing her down to her knees. you finished standing and launched yourself at her, bringing her back to the ground completely. Unfortunately she got her feet up underneath you and flipped you over her head. Why did there have to be so much glass on the floor? Suddenly she got up and began to run towards Natasha. Steve stepped in the way just in time. Between him and Natasha they gave her quite a beating. Sam finished by flying in and kicking her again. We all surrounded them.
“We don’t want to kill you, but we will.” Natasha threatened. “You’ll never get the chance again” was all she said before they both got beamed up into their ship. everyone stood there looking up in shock for a moment. “We should have killed them” you deadpanned. Steve scolded you with a disappointed sign and tired look. “What! They’re just going to come back and try to kill us later.” you shrugged defending yourself
you went to collect Wanda and Vision before getting back on the jet. It didn’t take long for Natasha to begin to scold Wanda about not taking any chances. You sat down with a pair of tweezers from the first aid kit and began pulling glass from your hands and arms, then wrapping them to stop the bleeding and protect from infection. That’s when Steve decided it was time to head home. On the way back you filled the team in with what you knew. “Dr. Strange was taken, which means the time stone has been too.” you explained, adding “It will be nearly impossible to make Strange give up that stone though.” After a beat of hesitation “Tony and the spider kid are on that ship too.” you finished. “How do you know all of this?” Sam asked with a furrowed brow.
“I spoke with Wong before calling the captain, I’ve been working with them while we were in hiding.” You offered. “Okay I’ll try again. Who is that and why was he your first call” Sam snapped.
you held your hands up palms facing towards him. “Wong works with Dr. Strange to protect the sanctum. I worked with them over the years. Collecting artifacts.” feeling your own irritation rise “And believe it or not, I have other friends besides you guys. And, he is actually in New York, and I assumed he helped Tony fight the aliens” Using your middle and pointer fingers to place pressure on the bridge of your nose and running them outwards over your brow bone and to your temples. “Which I was right about, by the way” you added with some remaining bite. Some of Sam’s frustration released as everyone relaxed a little. A different kind of tension rose as you came to the avengers compound. You and Sam gathered Vision, propping him up taking some of his body weight as your own. The team walked up to Rhodey, who was in a meeting with council members. Actually it was more like they were in an argument with Rhodey. The secretary's anger quickly turned to the Captain as everyone walked in. After he told Rhodey to arrest you all, they were all swiped away and everyone were able to take a breath and begin planning.
Vision offered up himself in order to destroy the mind stone, and asked Wanda to destroy it. The unthinkable for her. That solution wasn’t good enough for Steve, Banner offered up a theory that we could remove the mind stone but keep the rest of Vision alive and well. The only issue, we didn’t have that kind of technology or skill. “I know somewhere.” Steve nodded. Then back on the jet you went.
When you arrived in Wakanda, you couldn't help but look out of the window like a small child as the jet flew into the unfamiliar country. It was gorgeous, you could almost forget for a moment and live in a world where you weren’t about to fight a super war. You were already strapped into much better tactical gear than what you had quickly thrown on after you were called to help Wanda and Vision. You had made sure it had much better, non ripped, sleeves as well as a good pair of gloves. As the jet got closer to our landing zone, you added a little more weaponry to your suit, smaller guns and knives, just to be safe.
everyone walked up to meet the King, this time thankfully not trying to kill us. You walked close to Sam as we walked off of the jet and listened to T’Challa list off who was in the fight that was about to meet everyone. He got to one last member, allowing him to speak for himself. “ And a semi-stable 100 year old man.” Bucky grinds walking up to Steve. There was no choice but to smile a little as they hugged. Opting out of going up to the lab where Vision was being examined, you decided you wouldn’t be much help, and the room was full enough already. Instead you remained outside with Sam, Bucky, and Rhodey. All of you geared up to fight, standing between Bucky, and you guess now war machine, with just about every muscle in you body tense. You turned to Bucky, “You look a lot better!” talking to try to ease your anxiety, “Even got a new arm and everything.” Tapping on the metal lightly with your fingernails for a few seconds. you noticed him let out a breath, almost as if he had been holding it while you touched his arm. Simultaneously realizing, and feeling awful, this is probably something about himself that is a constant reminder of his past. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to..” words fell short. you didn't really know what to say. As your sentence died out of habit your hand went out to offer a sympathetic touch. Your brain quickly caught up with your body and you closed your hand into a fist and recoiled your hand. He just shook his head and brushed off the discomfort. “It’s definitely a lot better than the old one, more comfortable on my shoulder too” he looked at you, trying to offer some reassurance.
Then all conversation was cut short as what looked like just a ball of fire came hurtling down from above before crashing into the barriers surrounding Wakanda. Unfortunately that wasn’t the only one raining down on over the fields. Many started landing outside of the dome. Natasha, Steve, and T’Challa went to meet with one of the aliens you met earlier. Couldn't really hear the conversation but it sure didn’t sound like they were planning brunch together. As they returned it became clear it was about to get a lot worse. “I told you we should have killed them” grumbling as you got your gun ready.
The creatures were almost like dogs but 1000% more terrifying and gross. They began to attack the barrier at full force, which was okay, well not okay, it was rather unsettling. Only a few got through and it was easy enough to kill them before they got too far in. until they started to circle around it. T’Challa made the choice to open a small section of the barrier and those creatures began to flood in.
Shooting at them from afar worked for a while then there started to just be too many of them. They were everywhere. Overwhelming you and everyone fighting. They were just everywhere. Working with a group of the Wakandan warriors, the long range gun was nice but again there were just so many. As they got close you had to start using other gear. Making use of the taser rod you had on you to stun it while stabbing in the heart with a knife. Another jumped on you from the side, someone threw you a spear and you were able to stab it and throw it off. These things were attacking from all angles, Then a burst of bright light came down and an ax spun through the war zone taking out many of the creatures that had piled their way onto your team. Then Thor became fully visible. Hell yes, we might stand a chance after all. He also came with a tree and a racoon? Anyway, all things that could be thought about later, when you were not trying to prevent yourself from getting murdered. “What the fuck” you mouthed as the wheel machines came bursting out of the ground. There wasn't much time to gawk because the sure didn’t stop those space things from attacking. All you could do was keep running. Past the machines and closer to the barrier. Trying to find injured warriors. Making tourniquets where you could and moving them out of the direct path of fighting. You came up to one woman sitting on the ground, struggling to stand because of a wounded leg. There wasn’t anything around that you could tie it off with. Fuck it, you used your teeth to take my glove off and pulled the bandage wrapped around my arm and hand, protecting your skin, and quickly made use of it to patch up her leg the best you could. “Can you walk?” looking her in the eyes with your hands on her shoulders. She nodded back at you, you helped her get up and she began to limp away, but not without grabbing a spear first. Then you felt a strong blow as you were blindsided by one of those ugly dogs. Tumbling you both into one of the ditches made by the machines. It sat on top of you snarling in your face trying to bite, with only the taser rod in its way. Grabbed the long knife strapped to your thigh you shoved it into the creature's stomach, pulling it all the way up to its chest. You could feel the weight of whatever came out of it coating your body before it simply collapsed on top of you. After pushing it off you had simply lay there on your back for a minute, craning your head up towards the sky so you didn’t have to see the state the rest of you was in. Bullets reined above. You could hear them hitting more of those god forsaken things. You finally looked down and saw yourself covered in whatever blood and insides this thing had. “Ew , ew, ew” you repeated, brain short circuiting and just trying not to take a second look. Then you saw a person walk up to the side of the ditch, presumably the one who had fired shortly beforehand. Bucky stood above you on the edge of the ditch, eyes wide and a little confused. He knelt down and offered you his hand, you grabbed on his arm and he pulled you up out of the ditch. “You okay?” making sure you were steady on your feet. “Yeah I’m okay, physically, I don’t think I'll feel clean ever again.” Looking down at yourself cringing, arms slightly out to your side, before trying to wipe everything away. Bucky winced, sucking air through his teeth “Yeah, I think you got a little something over here.” sarcastically gesturing to his own hair. “Don’t… no” you replied, loosely pointing at him as he stifled a laugh. Gathering yourself and the now really gross knife and shook your head. Both parties were about to continue fighting your way through these things, everything went quiet, too quiet. Over the line Steve warned that something was coming. Bucky ran towards Steve. You went back out onto the battlefield.
There were flashes of light and ripples of energy moved through the forest. You could see Thor descend into the trees, a bright white light erupted from somewhere in the forest.
We won! We did it, Thor was able to stop Thanos in time.
Then all around, people started to turn to ash.
First just a few, then many all at once. everyone just stood there looking at one another, confused, scared, powerless. You ran and reached out to one of the Wakandan warriors next to you as you noticed her start to fade away, hoping that maybe, maybe, if you held on hard enough.
She turned to ash in your hands.
Then you just ran, as fast as you could, to where the light went off, into the woods where they were fighting Thanos. You could feel the blood run down your arm where the cuts had reopened, and the gash in your leg from the claw of one of those dogs, but it hardly mattered.
You found Nat first getting up off the ground, it took everything in you to not tackle her back to the ground in joy. Instead just yelling her name as you ran up. She turned suddenly, her eyes grew wide. The second she was in arms reach you hugged her as hard as you could, heart filling with at least some relief. “The other’s are up there” She told you, grabbing your hand, pulling you along as you ran up to everyone else.
Vision was there, lying on the ground, his vibrant colors lost. Your hand flew up to cover my mouth, trying to muffled the gasp, that was probably more along the lines of a sob. We could do nothing but stand there. Bruce broke the silence, asking questions about what was going on, and what was happening to everyone. “People…people started turning to ash on the field, so many people” you stuttered out, This was no place to cry, but tears slipped out anyways.
“Oh god” Steve breathed, falling from his kneeling position onto the actual ground.
Many of you tried to take count of who we had lost, who got turned to ash by Thanos, but there were just too many.
Back at the jet, you called Maria time and time again. All of her numbers, from three different phones, until one of the numbers ran out of room on her voicemail. Then you called Fury, same thing, no answer, no matter how many times you called. Finally Wong, you called once, no answer. By now the tears were streaming down your face without much you could do to stop them. Then you called again. This time, the ringing stopped, you heard a panicked “hello” from the other end of the line.
“Wong!” you practically lept through the phone, again an ounce of relief in your heart. They weren’t all gone. “Are you okay? What is going on? What does New York look like?” you rapid fired questions at him. “I’m okay, many of the people at Karmar-Taj vanished, turned to dust.” you could hear a shuttered breath coming out of him as he tried to continue “It’s chaos, there are cars crashing in the street, a helicopter crashed into a building. People are vanishing left and right” He finished, voice shaking.
“Thanos did it, he succeeded in his task.” your whole body deflated “We were so close, but it wasn’t enough.”
you walked back to where the others were also making calls. “I can’t get a hold of Scott” Steve said from the corner “there’s still no word from Tony” Bruce piled on. “Maria and Fury are MIA” you threw in “I got through to Clint,” Nat called out, silencing everyone “But, his family… His family is gone.” She finished.
You were all in shock, but couldn’t just stop and wallow.
Natasha and Steve went to New York, back to the avengers compound.
The rest tried to stay and help the Wakandans clean up, but were sent home after a few days.
The hunt for Thanos began, trying every method we could think of.
You tracked down Fury’s last known whereabouts and found an old pager on the ground. If it was something he pulled out in his final moments then it had to be important. You all tried to figure out how to get it working, Bruce used every method we could think of.
Nothing. For days, you searched, for days you tried to get the weird pager to work. Nothing. Then a woman showed up, demanding to know where Fury was. “Carol Danvers?” you asked, she looked at you confused. “Yes, how do you know that?”
“Fury has told me much about you, I am glad you’re here.” Then you all sat down and began to run through everything that had happened. “We need Tony.” Steve said in a very matter of fact way. “I can get him.” Carol announced without hesitation.
you were sitting in your room, trying to do anything besides think about all of the things you could be doing and all of the things you could have done differently.
You got a fish. you don’t know why, but you thought about it one day and decided you needed one. You sat on your bed and stared at it swimming in its tank. It was a pretty fish, one of the Betta ones, long fins, pink, it was lovely. You just stared at it because what else were you going to do? Then the water started to shake, and the fish began to dart around in alarm. Then the whole building began to shake. You ran out of the room only to be met by the others equally as confused. Everyone went outside to see a ship coming down onto the lawn, carried in by Carol
The ship landed and Tony began to stumble his way down the stairs. Steve ran to help him the rest of the way. He was followed by another person/alien? She sat near the bottom of the steps, and Rocket walked up to her and just sat down with her, they held hands in a silent mourning.
Tony mostly cared about one thing. Pepper. When she ran up to him one could almost feel his relief from across the lawn.
Everyone made their way back into a conference room where Steve and Nat filled Tony and Carol in on exactly what had happened in the last 23 days. Tony was hurt, broken, and very malnourished. Eventually Bruce had to give him a sedative.
Carol announced that she was going to go kill Thanos. You managed to stop her long enough to convince her to work with the group. Nebula helped the most with that, announcing that she knew where Thanos was. Nebula told the team how he wanted to rest in the gardens after his mission was complete.
You stepped away to make a quick phone call. “Wong, Tony’s ship was brought in today.” you hesitated “And?” a hopeful voice replied. “Strange wasn’t on the ship, he’s gone, the snap took him.” raising your eyes up towards the ceiling in an effort to keep yourself together. “I understand, Thank you for telling me. I have to go now, there is much work to do.” Then the line went dead.
An energy surge similar to the one that happened on earth after the snap was caught. So everyone boarded a ship and prepared to take off. After you got out of the atmosphere, Rocket turned around and asked “who here hasn’t been to space?” you slowly raised a hand into the air, as did many others. He warned you all not to throw up in his ship then took off. Very fast, uncomfortably fast. Then you were there. Looking at the planet that Thanos was on. Carol headed down to do recon. She returned with unusual news. There was nothing, no protective measures, no armies, no defenses, nothing. “It’s just him.” she finished.
“And that’s enough” Nebula warned
Carol dove in first wrapping him in a chokehold then Banner in his Hulk suit to grab the arm with the gauntlet, then Rhodey to grab the other arm. Thor came in and chopped the arm off completely. Steve walked into the hut Thanos had made for himself, with you and Natasha following behind.
Rocket turned the severed hand over, only to find it void of the stones we needed to complete our goals. Thanos confessed that he used the stones to destroy the stones. there were no solutions, no way to fix what he had done. “No that can’t be right.” you insisted Rhodey turned towards you nodding “We have to tear this place apart. He has to be lying!”
Nebula rejected that idea saying “her father is many things, but a liar was not one of them.” As Thanos was speaking to his daughter, you could see Thor wind-up, and before anyone could say anything, Thor jumped and cut off Thanoses head.
Then you got back on the ship and went home.
Then everyone left. Most agreed to keep in touch, making sure to check in, give reports on what was happening not only on earth but in space too.
you did make regular trips up to Greenwich village, but for the most part you stayed in the Avengers compound with Nat. With all of the missions and data, and labor that went into running the compound, it's something that's hard to do alone. you know she definitely could, but she shouldn't have to.