Dark Matter

“I lost track of you when we entered the ship,” Diana says, stepping forward to meet Carol halfway. “What happened?”

“I went for the portal room,” Carol says. She looks exhausted, tense, and her eyes dart around the room, looking past the Avengers, into the shadows behind them. “I thought you were right behind me until the monsters found me.”

“Outriders,” Carol says, sighing. “They got the jump on me before I realized you weren’t behind me. There were too many of them for me to fight alone. I had to duck and run and face them in one of the hallways so they couldn’t smother me.”

Diana frowns. “You should have stayed with me. We are more powerful together.”

“Trust me, I’m not leaving you after that little disaster,” Carol says. She pauses, again glancing around the dark room, growing tense. “At least you’ve found back up. That’s good.”

“You said you Batman’s been doing more than killing these things?” Constantine asks, stepping forward.

“He’s called Batman?” Rhodey asks. “Seriously?”

“Watch yourself,” Diana says, her tone mild but carrying a warning note. “He’s among the best of us.”

“We don’t have much room to talk,” Natasha adds. “Iron Man isn’t exactly the pinnacle of creativity.”

Rhodey scoffs, but doesn’t argue the point.

“He has,” Carol says, rubbing the back of her neck. Steve doesn’t like how twitchy she seems. He’s seen it happen before, back in the war; soldiers going out, getting stranded behind enemy lines, constantly looking for an enemy that may or may not be there. “I didn’t get a chance to hear all the details before the monsters found me, but the Black Order knows about Batman and he’s apparently managed to slow them down somehow.”

“Is the Black Order here?” Rhodey asks.

Carol shakes her head. “I don’t know. I lost track of them after the monsters rushed me.”

“Then we’d better take a look at that portal while we have the chance,” Rhodey says, disengaging his suit from the alien computer he’d hacked into moments before. “And decide what we’re going to do about it before they decide to come back.”

“Good idea,” Steve says. “Let’s move out.”

It takes them a few minutes to cross the distance from the raised platform to the portal. The true size of it hits Steve when they reach the control panel set near its base. They could march half of New York City through this thing and have room left over. The odd feeling from before only intensifies; this close to the portal, he can see the surface of it shift ever so slightly, like oil slick waves rolling. Seeing that on the ocean can be disturbing. Seeing that same rolling motion take place across the air itself is downright unnerving.

Rhodey, Rocket, and Banner immediately move to the control panel. Wong and Constantine move to the side, watching the portal. If anything, they look even more unnerved than before. After a brief conference between the two groups, they get to work.

There’s only so much work that can be done while the more technically advanced and magically inclined members of the team work, and frankly, most of the Avengers don’t have experience with interdimensional travel. That leaves the majority of the team free to discuss their current situation, bringing Carol up to speed.

"So Spider-Man isn’t dead, and he has a stone. Without it, Thanos can't invade,” Carol says, her expression turning thoughtful and distant, as if she’s half listening to the group.

“He has half a stone, which means Thanos can invade, just piece by piece,” Constantine points out, distracted by his magical working. To Steve, it looks like a lot of hand waving. “If he had a full stone, Thanos would be stuck here completely. Or so your dear doctor explained to me.”

“I am sensing quite a bit of magic moving around us,” Wong says thoughtfully. “Like a black hole, drawing in everything around it. Most of that energy hasn’t been put to a purpose yet. We could use it to our advantage, if done right.”

“You’re thinking of a barrier spell to cut the power?” Constantine asks, rubbing his chin. “Awfully simple solution to a big damn problem.”

“Sometimes the simpler solutions work best,” Okoye points out.

“If we cut the flow of magic while the others disable the technology it pours into, we could safely destroy the portal and undo Thanos’ work,” Wong says.

Constantine hums, tilting his head back and forth as he thinks. After a moment, he shrugs.

“Fair enough. If we put a stop to whatever he’s doing in this universe, trap him here, he won’t be able to reach mine. We cut him off completely, lock him here,” Constantine says. He pauses and looks at Diana. “That would cause a problem for the two of us, however. We’d be shutting the door leading back home.”

Diana considers his words for a moment. Finally, she shrugs. “I’ve been forced to leave my home behind for the greater good before. I can do it once more. What about you?”

Constantine thinks about that, rubbing his chin. “I’ve got friends I’d hate to leave behind, but if we don’t put a stop to this, several universes just pop out of existence. They’d be pretty pissed about that, I think.” After a moment, he shrugs. “Suppose I could just try to walk the tree back home.”

“The what?” Diana asks.

"Your wizard friend walked Yggdrasil to reach us," Thor says. Diana's eyebrows raise in shock.

"I'm not eager to repeat the experience," Constantine says.

“But that would leave Spider-Man stuck in your world,” Rhodey points out. “We could use this to find him first, bring him home, and then shut it down.”

Constantine winces. “Yeah, well. Keeping this open for a rescue operation isn’t exactly smart--”

“No, it isn’t. In fact, it’s dangerously stupid. We have to leave Spider-Man there,” Natasha says quietly.

“You can’t be serious,” Rhodey says, whirling around to face her. “If he knew there was a way home--”

“We have to make that choice for him. Setting aside the fact that every second here is a deadly risk, Spider-Man has a stone. Without it, Thanos and his army can’t fully invade. Thanos has to stick to scouting parties and small offensives. Something the Justice League seems more than capable of handling.”

Steve winces. Natasha isn’t wrong, but no one is eager to trap a sixteen year old in another world, cut off from his friends and family. Assuming he has any of those left after the Snap.

"So we leave him there? Alone?" Rhodey asks. "Trapped in--what city did you say it was, new guy?"

"Gotham," Constantine answers.

"And that’s a safe place?"

Constantine laughs. "Absolutely not, no. Bloody hell, that place is horrific--" He sees the expression on Rhodey’s face, stops, coughs, and says, "It's, ah, not the best place, no. Bit of a fixer upper, you could say."

"We're not leaving him there," Rhodey says flatly.

“We have to,” Natasha says quietly. Rhodey glares at her, and she meets his stare evenly. “Don’t act like you haven’t made these kinds of choices before, Rhodey. Step back and think. Billions of lives are on the line, in this universe and the next. At some point, every war turns into a numbers game.”

Rhodey stiffens when her words strike home, clenching his jaw. Throwing his own words back at him isn't the smoothest or most diplomatic way to handle this, but it is the most effective.

“So we leave him there for the rest of his life, cut off from anyone who knew him,” Rhodey says.

“How long do you think Thanos would let him live if he came back to this universe?” Natasha asks. She nods to the rows of empty vats inside the ship. “Look at this. If we can keep up the fight here, do a deep strike against Thanos and the Black Order while they try to build an invasion army, and keep Spider-Man safely out of their reach, we might be able to prevent another universe from being devastated like ours. Think of Earth. Think of all of the empty and half dead worlds we passed to get here. Is it worth the risk to bring him back here? For one hero?”

Steve’s reaction is instinctive, instant. "We don't trade lives."

"How well did that work out for Vision, Cap?" Clint asks.

Steve frowns as Rhodey says, "Low blow, Barton."

"But not an inaccurate one," Okoye says.

"What happens if he comes here?" Banner asks suddenly, interrupting their conversation.

That brings the room to a halt. He’s elbow deep in alien computer hardware, but he pokes his head up to look at the others. "Tony’s his mentor, which means he’s either as smart as or smarter than Tony. He wouldn’t have let the kid anywhere near his lab otherwise. What happens if he tries to come home?"

"Even Asgardian magic could not pierce the veil between universes," Thor says. "Not easily. The fact that the wizard from this other universe survived climbing Yggdrasil is--well. Unheard of. It should be impossible for mortals to endure. No offense, wizard.”

“None taken, your tree is a nightmare for human minds, and I hated every second I spent there," Constantine says.

"That might be true, Thor, but you've seen Tony in action," Banner points out. "What would Tony do if he was stranded somewhere? What would he do if one of us was trapped in another dimension?"

Thor pauses. "Point taken."

The group falls silent after that. After a few moments, Rocket clears his throat and says, “So, uh, what’re we doing here? Stay and wreck this thing or keep it and go through?”

The others look at Steve. He thinks of the state of Earth. He thinks of the deaths that have followed from a collapsing economy, the food riots and looting that are still happening despite everyone’s best efforts, and the painfully slow recovery that occurs in starts and stops as the people pushing for recovery simply collapse from physical, mental, or emotional exhaustion.

He thinks of the support group he leads, the empty eyed men and women who sit in a room to talk to him about failing love lives and bleak job prospects while the lights flicker on and off from rolling black outs. He thinks of the teenagers in that group, who are more grown and weathered than anyone should be at sixteen after losing half or more of the loved ones in their lives. He thinks of Ned Leeds, who fell asleep waiting to hear from his best friend and woke up to an empty house and a friend who never called.

After a moment, he sighs, and says, “Natasha’s right. Destroy it. We can’t let this happen to another universe, no matter what.”

I hope you can forgive us for this, Queens, he thinks. He knows Tony, wherever he might be, will never forgive them for this.

Rhodey makes a quiet sound of disgust, but doesn’t voice any further objections. He simply snaps his helmet back over his head and gets to work. Steve has no doubt that this is the last time Rhodey willingly works with the Avengers for a long time.

“Okay,” Rocket says, cutting through the tense silence. He points a finger at Wong and Constantine. “We’ll have to fire it up before we can start taking it apart. Don’t do anything until we turn this thing on.”

“Let us know where you need us,” Wong says quietly.

They get to work. The rest of the Avengers wait while the tech workers and magic users speak quietly among themselves. Rhodey’s tone is metallic, cold, and distant from within his suit. Banner’s tone is puzzled, but cooperative, and Rocket’s is short, but authoritative. When the portal ignites, it flares up like liquid fire, an eerie blue-black light rolling out from the center to the edges of the portal. The center of the portal turns black, though the edges pulse with that eerie blue light. A quiet rush of wind follows, pushing at the Avenger’s backs.

“Alright, it’s your turn,” Rocket says, waving a hand at Constantine and Wong. “Just make sure you stop when we tell you.”

Constantine lets out a low whistle. “This is gonna take awhile.”

Wong steps up beside him and flicks his wrists, summoning fiery golden discs over his hands that gently spin in the air. “I prefer to think of it as meditative. You might even like it.”

“Trust me, we don’t need me to start getting introspective,” Constantine replies dryly. His hands light up as well, but with a darker red that seems more sinister to Steve. “You take the lead, I’m not completely attuned to the magic in your universe yet.”

“We’ll compare techniques another time,” Wong says, taking one step forward to take the physical and metaphysical lead.

Things settle into a tense, waiting period after that. The experts work their magic (in some cases literally) while the rest of the team sits and waits. The wind at their back grows stronger and more insistent as they work, the portal’s black surface rolling like ocean waves. Steve is on edge. This is all too easy, too clean. Clint and Natasha seem to share his sentiment; Clint's grip on his bow is a tad too firm, and Natasha’s hand never strays far from the knives hidden on her person.

Carol reaches up and rubs her forehead, as if suddenly struck with a headache. The movement doesn’t go unnoticed.

“You hurt?” Clint asks.

“Yes,” Carol says. A moment later, she shakes her head. “No. Just shaking off some confusion. It’s been a long--actually, I don’t know how long it’s been.”

“The Black Order did have you trapped for some time,” Diana says, frowning. “And we have not had a chance to rest. Have we pushed too far?”

“No. Maybe,” Carol shakes her head. “Sorry, give me a second. I need to get some air.”

She moves away from Clint and Natasha. Steve frowns at Carol. Something about her is off, though he can’t place it. Something about her face...

Thor walks up beside him. "Is something troubling you?"

"Carol’s eyes. They weren't always blue, were they?" Steve asks.

“No, they were brown,” Thor says slowly, frowning at him. “Unless her powers turn them blue? We do not know much about her.”

Rocket, Rhodey, and Banner are all clustered around the control panel. Rocket and Rhodey are bent over the half disassembled panel, with Rhodey’s suit plugged into it and a blue holoscreen hovering in front of them. As Steve watches, Rocket and Rhodey quietly puzzle out the controls together: Rocket uses a set of thin tools that look like lockpicks while Rhodey helps guide him around whatever security is wired into the system. Banner, whose hands are simply too big to help contribute to the delicate work required, stands back and offers input or suggestions as the other two work.

Carol walks over to the little group. Banner looks up from their work and gives her a welcoming smile. Steve remembers first meeting the man and is briefly struck by how much he’s changed; the twitchy fugitive he met is a distant memory to the self-confident Hulk standing with them today.

"Hey, Carol," Banner says. He nods to the control panel. “Stay back from that. It’s going to get pretty unstable.”

“Is it?” Carol asks, and there’s a tone to her question that sets Steve’s teeth on edge.

He isn’t the only one to notice; Diana’s head snaps towards Carol, and she frowns. She crosses over to Wong and Constantine, standing beside her fellow Justice League member. He glances at her briefly, confused, but refocuses on his own task moments later. There’s a slight shift to Diana, one that almost reads as protective.

“Very,” Banner says. “But don’t worry. We should be done soon.” He laughs, a little nervously, though Banner’s laughs have always been a tiny bit nervous. “And then I guess we can say we won and head home.”

Carol goes utterly still, losing the oddly strained fidgeting from moments earlier. She stands up straight, looks Hulk in the eye, and says, “You’ve already lost.”

Banner frowns at her, utterly confused. “What--”

Carol’s arm flares with blue light and she snaps her fingers.

Banner flakes apart, his massive body collapsing into ash and dust in seconds. He barely has enough time to aim a wounded look of betrayal at Carol before he disappears.

Two things happen immediately after: Diana grabs Constantine by the scruff of his neck and bodily yanks him back and away from the portal and Carol begins to glow. Golden energy flashes across her body, gathering along her other arm. She aims her arm at the control panel where Wong, Rhodey, and Rocket are standing.

One blast of golden light aimed at the heart of the machine blows it apart. The portal snaps into life. The pitch black voids flashes into a strange, red-gold color and the wind at their backs shifts from a strong gust to a near hurricane wind, as if the portal has turned into a vacuum. The wind staggers Rocket, and then sucks him into the portal. Rhodey and Wong follow, the surface of the portal flashing when each one passes through it.

Carol whirls around to face the others. Okoye is the first to react, and the first target of Carol’s next attack. A blast of gold energy knocks the Wakandan general off of her feet and towards the portal; she curses, driving her spear into the dark steel of the ship. The vibranium tip digs a furrow into the steel before the magnetic pull of the portal pulls her inside.

Steve leaps for Carol, slamming the rim of his shield against her arm, sending a second blast of golden energy aimed at Natasha and Clint wide. She barely flinches, and even then he’s not entirely sure it’s due to pain; it’s the kind of jump someone would give when startled. Her answering strike to his chest sends him flying through two of the empty vats, dropping him in a heap near Nat, Clint, Diana, and Constantine.

He grunts, and rolls over towards Natasha and Clint, who both move to cover him. Steve’s not really used to fighting so many people outside of his weight class these days.

Thor lets out a roar of challenge, and twin flashes of golden light and blue-silver lightning fill the room.

Constantine grunts, holding his head and blinking woozily up at Diana. “What--”

“Be still, and stay low,” Diana orders him, half shielding the sorcerer. She glances at Clint and Natasha huddled behind one of the vats nearby, calling out, “What is happening?”

“Carol’s been hit by one of the stones,” Clint says. He has to shout to be heard over the fight between Thor and Carol. “She’s under mind control!”

"The last time this happened to one of us, we had to use a little bit of cognitive recalibration to fix it," Natasha calls out.

Diana frowns at her. Clint clarifies.

"She hit me in the head really goddamn hard," he shouts.

"I believe I can do that,” Diana says, rising up, gripping her own shield.

“We’ll help,” Natasha says. Clint nods.

“Not sure how we’re going to do that, but sure, we’ll help,” Clint mutters, just barely loud enough for Steve to hear. He glances at Steve. “You okay, Cap?”

“Got my bell rung, but I’ll be fine,” Steve replies, shaking off the last of Carol’s strike. It hadn’t been a killing blow, fortunately. He’s going to have one hell of a bruise, though. He stands up, crouching low. “Distract her, but keep your distance.”

“Arrows aren’t exactly close range weapons,” Clint remarks dryly, pulling out an arrow and rising up to aim and let it loose. A quiet whoomph sound fills the air, followed by crackling pops. A flashbang arrow. “Nat, that’s your cue.”

Natasha is already moving, low and quick. Her distraction is much simpler; several knives, slim black blades, flung from several directions almost at once. Carol avoids every last one, but they’re an annoyance and distraction, and they give Thor an opening.

“Wonder Woman--” Steve starts. He pauses when he sees Constantine shake himself, and start to stand. “Is he all right?”

“Magical blowback,” Constantine says, his voice rough and strained. “It happens when a spell is interrupted halfway. Gimme a moment, I’ll be fine.”

Steve nods, then looks at Diana. “Hit her hard, make room for me or Thor if you need, and don’t let the portal catch hold of you.”

“Understood, Captain,” Diana says. She sprints out of the dubious cover of the vat and goes to aid Thor, Clint, and Natasha.

Steve looks at Constantine. “Can you finish the spell? Destroy the portal?”

“You wanna do that with most of your friends inside?” Constantine asks.

God, he hopes they’ll forgive him for this. “Yes.”

Constantine frowns, but nods. “I’ll get to work. I’ll have to get close to the portal, though.”

“Be careful,” Steve says. He sprints out of his own cover and into the fray.

To her credit, Carol gives the heroes a run for their money. In a straight fight, it wouldn’t last this long, but she’s looking to hurt, and they’re looking to restrain. The Avengers and Wonder Woman are trying to stop her, and are mildly hamstrung by it. Carol, for her part, strikes as hard and quickly as she can--except for when she doesn’t. Every few seconds, she stumbles, staggers, or wildly shifts a dead certain strike so that it smashes into a wall, one of the empty glass vats, or floor.

A flashbang arrow from Clint, a shoulder shove from Thor, a surgically thrown knife from Natasha, and Carol is sufficiently distracted enough for Wonder Woman to land a crushing blow across the side of Carol’s head. She staggers back, losing the golden light around herself. Steve capitalizes on the opening and grapples with her.

“Getback,” she snarls at Steve, her eyes briefly flashing back to their natural color. “Get away before I hurt you.”

“We aren’t abandoning you. Fight it, just a second longer,” Steve says. He’s not strong enough to knock her out; that has to come from Diana or Thor, preferably both. He can see the two gods prepare for another blow.

“I’m not giving you a choice,” Carol retorts. She lifts her hand towards him, the way she did towards Banner moments ago. Steve feels his stomach drop; they’re locked together and there’s no way he can jump back from her or duck away to avoid what’s coming.

He grits his teeth and braces himself. Maybe if he shifts just right, he can force his ashes into her face and distract her long enough for Thor or Diana to land a solid hit--

Carol yanks her arm free, throwing him off balance and pushing him away two or three steps. Her eyes flash blue and brown for a moment, settle on brown--

And she snaps.

She disappears in a cloud of ash and dust in front of his very eyes. For a moment, his awareness snaps back to the Battle in Wakanda, and he hears Bucky’s unsure, ‘Steve?’ as clearly as he did the day Thanos killed half of the universe.

Another Avenger lost.

A voice comes from the darkness, one that makes Steve's blood run cold, says, “A pity. She would have been so useful in the other universe.”

The red stone on the gauntlet gleams, and a veil of darkness rolls away from Thanos, the heavy shadows of the massive room pulling back to reveal the Mad Titan. Beside him, crouched on the walls and ceiling, practically stacked on top of each other, are thousands of mutant outriders, their eyes and teeth glittering in the eerie light pouring out of the portal.

“Oh, that’s a problem,” Clint says.

“Avengers, form up,” Steve hisses, turning to face this new threat. Dimly, he’s aware of the ashes covering the front and arms of his suit.

“I left you alive as a mercy,” Thanos says evenly, stepping towards them. “An undeserved one, but a mercy nonetheless. I gave you purpose in a newly changed universe. A chance to rebuild and renew your world, to prevent it from falling to the corruption from before. And instead you defy me.”

“Come and say that to our faces!” Thor calls out. Steve glares at him. Thor shrugs, sweeping his axe across another group of bat monsters. “I can’t very well hit him with my axe from here, now can I? Those things are in the way. He’ll dodge it.”

“How the hell did Carol snap Hulk and herself away?” Natasha hisses to Steve’s left. She’s standing beside Constantine, who is deep in concentration. “This doesn’t make sense!”

“I gifted her a portion of the Space Stone,” Thanos explains. “Even a sliver of a stone is unbelievably powerful. I did this first to maintain my control over her mind, but I found a new use for it. I can channel the use of the stone’s powers through it if the bearer doesn’t master the use over their own portion.”

Thanos begins to step towards them, and the room is suddenly filled with the hissing swish of thousands of monsters moving with him. They match him step for step, some snarling, others growling eagerly, flexing massive claws.

“This is poor timing on your part,” Thanos continues, half to himself. “I was intending to use that portal today, and you’ve delayed it. Death is too merciful, but it would be the most efficient use of my time.”

The Avengers are spread out, facing Thanos and his army in a ragged line. Constantine is standing beside Natasha, with Steve beside her, and Thor and Diana on the other side of him. Clint is behind Natasha and Constantine. The sorcerer is murmuring something under his breath, hands shifting in the air.

Thanos stops, tilts his head, and focuses on Constantine. “That cannot be allowed to continue.”

He raises the gauntlet, the stones flash, and a wave of force shoots out of the gauntlet, aimed directly at Constantine. Natasha slams her shoulder into Constantine’s side, sending the man staggering off to the side with a startled oomph and a curse. The blast hits Natasha dead center, and she flies back into Clint who instinctively catches her and braces for a fall.

It’s a fall that never comes; they hit the event horizon of the portal, and are quickly dragged inside. It flashes as they sail through, and something like thunder follows it.

“She--why the hell would she do that--” Constantine asks shakily, at a loss.

“Focus, Constantine!” Steve snaps. He’s just lost most of the Avengers, including three of the closest people to friends he had left after the Infinity War. Of the original six, it’s just himself and Thor now. “Thor--”

Thor doesn’t need any instructions. He roars in fury, and throws Stormbreaker at the Titan, flooding the room with crackling lightning and thunder. As he predicted, waves of outriders leap in the way of the god forged axe, and they fall by the dozens from the blade alone.

Which gives Diana just enough room for her to throw her sword at Thanos. The golden blade sails through the air behind Stormbreaker, hidden by the axe’s lightning and larger size. And it strikes true.

Whatever Diana’s sword is made of, it’s strong enough to wound Thanos. It buries itself into his chest, up to the hilt, staggering the Titan, wounding him enough that purple blood begins to pour out of the wound. When he grips it with the gauntlet, it’s shunted aside, as if by magic. Thanos snarls.

“Kill them,” he rasps. A flick of his wrist and Thanos disappears, Diana’s blade still buried in his chest.

“You should have gone for the head,” Thor says helpfully.

“I didn’t have a good angle for that,” Diana replies. “But thank you, I’ll keep it in mind for next time.”

A ragged shriek enters the air, and the remaining batlike outriders rush towards the remaining Avengers. They’re on them in moments, forcing Steve, Thor, and Diana to shift and stand side by side to face the oncoming horde. Constantine quite sensibly stays behind them, keeping out of the way of the more physical members of the team.

What follows is a bloody war of attrition. If Steve held any illusions that Diana had been fighting him to her full ability, they’re gone now. She matches Thor for strength and ferocity, and at first, it’s a struggle for him to keep up with the two gods. He manages to match their rhythm, and the three of them soon work together like a well oiled machine, churning through the monsters with shield, sword, and axe while Constantine covers their flanks with well placed bursts of magical fire. It’s a bloody war of attrition; for every inch the monsters gain, they lose nearly a hundred.

But there are thousands of them. And they are gaining ground.

Worse than that, the bat creatures piece themselves back together. Their brackish, black blood reverses flow, dragging crushed and severed limbs back towards the monster’s body. Soon, even the monsters they’ve managed to cut down rejoin the fray, all the more furious for having been killed in the first place. That’s about the time Steve realizes they’re going to lose.

The four of them are a formidable team, but the sheer number of those damn bat monsters presses against them. At first, the remaining Avengers break the tide. Thor and Wonder Woman fall in beside each other with their respective weapons, seasoned warriors from distant lands instantly finding balance with one another as they slaughter any of the monsters to get close. Thor's axe sweeps off the heads of three monsters attempting to attack Wonder Woman's flank. Wonder Woman’s shield crushes four leaping for Thor. The monsters crash into them, around them, and soon Constantine has to shift positions, ducking in between Steve, Thor, and Diana when the monsters circle around to their backs. They’re crawling over one another to reach them, and the fight is becoming more and more of a pitched battle.

“I need a weapon!” she shouts, ducking past Thor to slam her shield against one of the monsters leaping for Steve.

“I have a dagger on my belt!” Thor shouts back, struggling to hold back a fresh pack of monsters. “Grab it! It’s better than nothing!”

Diana grabs for the dagger on Thor’s belt. Her hand brushes against the handle of Mjolnir hanging from the pouch on his belt.

Mjolnir leaps into her hand, the shattered pieces of the hammer flowing back together like water. There’s a flash of gold, a crack of thunder, and golden lightning crawls up her arm and across her armor as Mjolnir’s power floods through her. Her armor shifts, changes, the Grecian symbols intermixing with Asgardian runes. Her eyes flash gold, and she slams the hammer down, vaporizing nearly a quarter of the attacking force with a war cry loud enough to echo through the ship.

“Or use that, I suppose,” Thor says, his tone equally shocked and giddy.

“This is a good hammer,” Wonder Woman says, awe in her own voice. Golden lightning arcs off of her armor and the hammer itself.

“I’ve got an idea. We need to get to the portal!” Constantine shouts.

“We’re going into that thing?” Steve says, shouting to be heard over the battle.

“You have any better ideas?”

He doesn’t. “Wonder Woman, Thor, clear us a path! I’ve got rearguard!”

Thor and Wonder Woman crash into the oncoming horde hard enough to send several of the monsters flying in all directions. Lightning, gold and blue, courses through the front ranks, obliterating scores of the monsters and leaving nothing but black ash behind--if anything is left behind at all.

“They are endless,” Thor shouts, barely heard above the screeching fury of the tide of monsters. “They just keep advancing!”

“Then so will we!” Diana shouts back. A flash of golden lightning, and thunder emphasize her words, and scores more of the monsters die.

It’s all Steve can do to push Constantine ahead of himself so they don’t fall too far behind from the battle eager gods. Constantine curses, sparks of fiery magic twirling in the air between his fingers as they run. He mutters something low and strange and flings out a hand, sending a tongue of flame from his palm to the portal. The surface shifts, rippling away from the flame, the color shifting to a golden-green.

“Oh, thank fuck, it worked,” Constantine pants. He cries out, “When you get inside, jump!”

Thor and Diana reach the portal first, leaping into it fearlessly. Constantine is next, stumbling as he crosses over. Steve crashes through the portal, leaping at the last possible second.

The world shifts, tilting wildly in place, and setting off a vicious case of vertigo. The portal opens up onto a massive branch that pulses with green and gold. It smells like spring--but not just that. It smells like summer, winter, fall, all of them at once. Steve looks up and finds himself staring up at an impossibly massive tree, whose branches stretch out and touch the stars above, intermingling with them. Unfathomably huge fruit hangs from some of the branches, fruit that shifts and rolls, filled with brilliant stars.

Galaxies. The fruit on this tree are entire galaxies.

Constantine hijacked the portal’s end point. He sent them to Yggdrasil.

“Fuck!” Constantine yells, behind him. Scrambling sounds follow, and dozens of bloodthirsty shrieks follow. He’s clinging to the edge of the branches, his grip slipping while the outriders bear down on top of him.

Steve dives down to grab Constantine, gripping the man’s arm. Constantine didn’t clear his jump; he’s being pulled back towards the portal, and the monsters crossing over behind him. Constantine curses again, clinging to Steve’s arm desperately. Steve’s balance slips and he barely manages to keep his balance. It’s a losing proposition; he’s being subjected to the same gradual pull as Constantine, and even his strength is no match for it.

They won't make it. Steve sees that clear as day. The monsters are gaining on them, and Steve can't pull Constantine and himself up in time. Not with the shield weighing down his other arm--

The shield.

Steve snaps his arm out, launching the shield in a perfect arc past Constantine's head and towards the swarming beasts behind Constantine. The shield strikes the lead monster with an echoing clang, and sets off a domino effect with the rest of them. The leader goes down and trips the two closest to him; the closest fall and take out two others and so on. It’s a delaying tactic, but it might be enough to buy them time.

Time enough for Wonder Woman to grab Steve, and Thor to grab Constantine. The two gods haul their mortal friends back onto the shimmering branch, pulling against gravity and wind with extreme effort.

The shield sails off into the void and crashes into a patch of darkness. The darkness shatters, splitting apart like waves in a storm, opening up to reveal a dingy warehouse and a man. The man is tall, broad shouldered, dressed in practical combat clothing, with a shirt that has a stylized red bat across the chest. He’s wearing a red mask and a red hood over it. Blood streams from beneath the hood, smearing across his neck and staining his shirt. He’s swaying on his feet, battle weary, and he startles as the shield bounces onto the ground beside him. His head snaps up at Steve just before the waves of darkness roll back into place.

Hope he likes the gift, Steve thinks wryly, shifting his weight and helping Diana haul him up onto the massive branch. She handles his weight easily, and he’s again distantly thankful that she held back during their initial meeting.

“Are you all right?”

“My pride took a beating, but I’ll live,” he says, letting her help hoist him up onto his feet.

He can hear Thor ask a similar question to Constantine, who lets out a shaky answer. Thor laughs and claps a hand on Constantine’s shoulder. The sorcerer staggers, but offers a weak grin in return, more out of politeness than anything else.

"Lost my shield," Steve says idly.

"I wouldn't worry about that. It'll end up exactly where and when it needs to be," Constantine says, pulling out a cigarette with shaking hands. His shield against the violent winds and brilliant dust is holding, but it’s clearly putting a strain on him. “Right now, we should worry about moving. We’re too exposed to the cosmic winds here, and the storms are bound to roll in soon.”

“Can you hold back the storm for all of us?” Thor asks, frowning at him.

Constantine lets out a harsh laugh. “Haven’t got much of a choice, do I? At least we’ve ruined their portal for a bit. Let’s go.”

Yggdrasil stretches before them.

They begin to walk.